



—»w 



i i i ■ Winn. m fcM i ^'rtf ' OW ' X ' m i mu ii w ii Mirn i ip ii n ii n i 

m~m*~ « * yi i ■ ■■ ' ■ ' 

"IP 




.'.' :-: ::^ o-, , ;• ...:■"•:• ;':\; SS< 



ISPPPPPP 






COURSE IN 




SIISH 



■ M iiiw OT i.M *wnw«nwwiW>' w im>iwiia aw>iww 

il!WI<j|| l ]i|>il)«»MI»i»»WiW^fW>fW)iilIi>|f>i>ivv:.j'Wiiri 



l»W». » «*M>nvu.L »wawt«> 



WILLIAM CLEMBR WILKINSON 







['.|;iss K ACoOO^- 
ioak \A/ 







PRESENTED BY 



^(p 



THE AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 



BY WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON. 



PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENCLISH. 
PREPARATORY LATIN COURSE IN ENCLISH. 
COLLECE CREEK COURSE IN ENCLISH. 
COLLEGE LATIN COURSE IN ENCLISH. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

A FREE LANCE. (A VOLUME OF ESSAYS,) 

WEBSTER: AN ODE. WITH NOTES. 

POEMS. 

THE DANCE OF MOOERN SOCIETY. 

EDWIN ARNOLD AS POETIZER AND AS PACANIZER, 



FOR SALE BY 
THE CHAUTAUQUA PRESS, 

805 Broadway, New York. 



THE AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 



COLLEGE 



LATIN COTJESE 



IN ENGLISH 



BY 

WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON. 



1HIE TT- FO FRTH Til USA SD. 



NEW YORK : 

CHAUTAUQUA PRESS, 

C. L. S. C. Department. 

i3S6. 



z\ 






The required books of the C. L S. C. are recommended by 
a Council of six. It must, however, be understood that recom- 
mendation does not involve an approval by the Council, or by 
any member of it, of every principle or doctrine contained in the 
book recommended. 



:%*;//** 



Copyright 1885, by Phillips & Hunt, 805 Broadway, New York, 



PREFACE. 



With the present volume we bring to its completion a 
series of four books, projected for the purpose of making 
accessible to English readers, in their own tongue, the treas- 
ures of Greek and Latin letters, as these treasures are dis- 
closed to the average American student in the ordinary course 
of school and college education. 

The preparation of this series of books has happened to 
coincide in time with vivid public discussion, experiencing 
its irregularly periodic revival among us, of the question 
whether after all classical culture ought not to be regarded 
now as a thing that has had its day. The fact of such discus- 
sion, rife anew at just this moment, may well awaken in the 
present writer's mind a somewhat serious consideration. 
Has he perhaps been doing work for the past rather than 
for the future ? Is modern interest in ancient classic liter- 
ature doomed presently to be extinguished ? What, as to 
this point, are the signs of the times ? 

There is no disguising the fact that Greek and Latin are 
yielding some ground that once was theirs in the schools 
and the colleges. At Harvard, for example, it has been 
proposed that Greek shall no longer be made a study indis- 
pensable for admission to full standing in the classes. This 
change established, a Harvard student might perhaps at 



6 Preface. 

graduation know nothing whatever of Greek. The precedent 
■ — should the example be set, and should it become a prece- 
dent — would no doubt commence an important innovation. 
The influence, however, to depress Greek culture, would not 
be so great as might at first be imagined. The chief differ- 
ence would be only that those students would freely neglect 
Greek, who, under the system of compulsion, would learn it 
reluctantly. Such learners, probably, would never under any 
circumstances become good Greek scholars. -They would 
grow up to hate Greek study, and to talk against it. Meantime, 
students that really wish to learn Greek would do so as under 
the old plan. It is out of the ranks of these students that 
good Greek scholars will come, in the future, as has been the 
case in the past. There would then be this positive gain to the 
cause of Greek culture, that there would be nobody to speak ill 
of it — nobody, that is, having the authority of ostensible quali- 
fication to do so. Sound Greek scholarship, enlightened in- 
terest in Greek literature, will thus lose little, and they will 
certainly stand a chance of gaining something, by the change 
of Greek from a compulsory to an elective study whether in 
school or college. It will simply mark a new importation of 
good common sense into the business of liberal education — a 
place in which, always, that not too 'abundant quality is as 
much needed as anywhere else in the world. Wise friends 
of Greek learning find, therefore, small occasion of fear in 
the prevalent tendency to leave Greek open to election or 
rejection at the will of the student. There is, however, in 
this tendency a reason why earnest efforts should be put 
forth to make the choice of students judicious. The present 
series of books will, it is hoped, contribute something to dif- 



Preface. 7 

fuse that general intelligence on the subject which is neces- 
sary in order to making the atmosphere of public opinion 
favorable to the right tendency in choosing. 

Over against the apparent loss thus admitted to have be- 
fallen the cause of classic studies, is to be set a positive gain 
that more than compensates. Colleges for the education of 
women are multiplying Greek and Latin students among the 
gentler sex. Classic culture is thus unobservedly getting a 
new lease of life in this country. And the not very remote 
eventual result is destined to be incalculably large. For, 
through the influence exerted by the cultivated future moth- 
ers of the land, it may with confidence be expected that the 
coming generations of children will furnish a much more 
numerous proportion of students that will choose Greek and 
Latin, than could at present be counted in our colleges. 

Another very significant fact pointing toward the persist- 
ence of classical studies at our seats of higher education is 
supplied in the result recently reached in Germany of an 
experiment tried with a view to the permanent relinquish- 
ment of Greek and Latin in the course appointed to be pur- 
sued by scientific students. These students, by exception, 
were recently, for a term of years, permitted to proceed 
without the preliminary training in Greek and Latin that 
had before been obligatory upon all university students alike. 
But the experiment proved unsatisfactory in its results, and 
the authorities published an elaborate report to the effect 
that scientific students in whose preparatory training the 
classic languages had, with a view to their greater advan- 
tage, been omitted, turned out — so far from being profited 
by the omission — to be not capable of even holding their own 



8 Preface. 

in scientific pursuits with their fellow-students that had been 
previously drilled in Greek and Latin. 

Once again. At the self-same moment at which, on the 
one hand, so much is getting said against Greek and Latin, 
there is too, on the other hand, an activity, perhaps quite un- 
paralleled, exhibited in the cultivation of those languages. 
This is to be seen in the multiplication of translations into 
English of the great Greek and Latin authors — translations 
executed with an exactness of scholarship joined to a finish 
of style in composition, transcending any standard previously 
established for such work. Besides this, learned editions of 
Greek and Latin texts are now issuing, especially from the 
English press, such, in number, in variety, and in elegance of 
form, as to constitute a token of favor with the public, highly 
reassuring to the lover of the ancient classics. 

The late brilliant production at Harvard — Harvard, the 
supposed radiant center itself of reactionary influence against 
classical studies — of a Greek tragedy in the original language, 
witnessed by a crowded frequence of spectators drawn to- 
gether from far and near; this, and a highly successful ex- 
hibition, following this, of a play of Terence at Ann Arbor 
in its primitive Latin, with the still more recent, and cer- 
tainly not less remarkable, presentation in St. Louis, by the 
young women of Washington University, of a Roman com- 
edy, given in the mother-tongue of Plautus, its author — these 
things, we submit, are not to be interpreted as signs that the 
cultivation of the speech of Greece or of Rome is very rap- 
Idly dying out among us. Then there is what significance 
belongs to the regular issue — begun not long ago, but steadily 
prospering — of an American monthly magazine in Latin, Latine*) 



Preface. 9 

edited with spirit and scholarship, and published under amply 
encouraging auspices. Professor Shumvvay's little monogtaph, 
14 Latin Synonymes," just brought out in this country, is one 
of those specialist works, the appearance of which in any 
community unmistakably indicates existing in that commu- 
nity an interest in the subject treated — indicates such in- 
terest and stimulates such interest. New lexicons, both of 
Greek and Latin — superb volumes, prepared with vast labor 
and expense — have very lately been given to the American 
public, and that fact means something. Not to be overlooked 
is the movement, already with a history, and yearly gathering 
strength, that maintains an American school in Athens itself, 
expressly to provide for students sojourning there the op- 
portunity to study that " dead language," on the spot where — 
for all the ill-omened adjective "dead " persistently dogging 
it — the Greek language still prolongs its unquenchable life. 

Finally, it is to be said that there is now at work a new 
force for popular culture destined to exert no small propor- 
tion of influence in continuing, if not perpetuating, among 
Americans, the prosecution of classical studies. We refer to 
the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. This 
is a movement, or institution — which shall we call it ? if it is 
not itself a movement, it certainly creates movement — de- 
signed to increase popular culture, both by broadening it in 
its base, and by building it higher. The prosperity of the 
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle has been remark- 
able. Within the few years of its existence it has, chiefly 
from among classes of persons that, but for its influence, 
would have undertaken nothing of the sort, engaged readers, 

to be numbered by hundreds of thousands, (or at least by 
1* 



eo Preface. 

scores of thousands added to a hundred thousand,) in a 
course of reading in which the authors of ancient Greece 
and Rome are largely represented. The interest thus awak- 
ened in classic studies has been vivid. Some men of mature 
years have been incited to commence learning the classic 
languages for themselves. It is not extravagant to expect 
that the ultimate influence of this movement for extending 
popular culture will report itself in augmented numbers of 
applicants for admission to college, animated beforehand 
with a fixed purpose to prosecute within college walls the 
cultivation of Greek and Latin studies. 

Altogether, the prospect is not gloomy for the future of 
classical studies in America. This After-school Series of 
books is not an anachronism. It has a mission, and its mis- 
sion is not to ring out a slowly dying cause. Our readers 
may confidently feel that what they find here deals with 
matter that will interest many generations to come, as it has 
already interested many generations past. The human mind 
will have to be constituted otherwise than as it is, before it 
ceases to be concerned with its own former history. And 
that history, be sure, is inextricably intertwined with the 
languages in which two great perished nations of mankind did 
their thinking, their speaking, and their writing. 



CONTENTS. 



+++■ 



I. Pagh 

LlVY 13 

II. 

Tacitus 64 

III. 
Plautus and Terence > 122 

IV. 
Lucretius 154 

V. 
Horace 1 73 

VI. 
Juvenal 215 

VII. 
Cicero (as Man of Letters) 231 

VIII. 
Pliny 274 

IX. 
quintilian 29i 

Appendix. 313 

Index 323 



lllttstratitftts. 



M l 

PAGE 

Map of Ancient Rome Frontispiece 

Hamilcar. 23 

Hannibal 25 

F ABIUS 40 

Nero as Apollo 76 

Popple A 84 

Agrippina 90 

octavia „ ioo 

Seneca no 

Vespasian 116 

Corbulo 121 

Nero 121 

Terence 143 

Maecenas 177 

Regulus * 196 

Augustus 202 

Horace 214 

Cicero (profile) 232 

Cicero 241 

Scipio 265 

Hortensius 318 

N. B.— The stamp on the cover represents the " Hall In the Grove " at Chautauqua. 



COLLEGE 

LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 



I. 

LIVY. 

Livy is not the earliest of Roman writers. The earliest 
Roman writers have perished from memory in almost every 
thing save their names. Livy is not even the earliest of 
Roman writers that still survive in their works. For begin- 
ning, however, here with Livy, some reason exists in the fact 
that he, though not himself the earliest of extant Roman 
writers, and not the earliest of extant Roman writers of his-' 
tory, is yet the earliest extant Roman writer of history to 
make the whole story of Rome a theme for his pen. Who- 
ever would know from Rome herself how Rome commenced, 
and for many generations pursued, her career, must go to 
Livy to get his information. If not, then, on account of his 
own historical position, at least on account of his historical 
subject and treatment, Livy seems the right author to place 
here at the head of our list. 

Of Livy the man little is known, except that he wrote one 
of the most delightful histories in the world. To him, more 
perhaps than to any other writer, is due the traditional fame 
of the Romans for traits of high character. Roman virtue is 
not wholly a figment of fancy; for of virtue, in the antique 
sense of that word, the Romans, with the Spartans, certainly 
possessed a large share. But Livy is of all men the man who 
supplies the historic or mythologic material out of which the 



14 College Latin Course iti E?iglish. 

current lofty ideal of Roman character has been constructed. 
Cato lived before Livy. If he had not, there is one memo- 
rable complaint of his that he would not have needed to 
make. Cato said that there were Roman stories as well 
worthy of immortal remembrance as any stories told of -the 
Greeks — there wanted only to Rome the genius of some 
great writer to tell those stories properly. That occasion of 
reproach Livy took away. Hardly has any Greek historian 
surpassed for Greece the romantic interest and charm with 
which Livy has invested the tale of royal and republican 
Rome. What remains to us of Livy is endeared to our ap- 
preciation by the fact that it is so small a part of the precious 
whole work that he produced. 

Ti'tus Liv'i-us Pat-a-vi'nus we know was born at Pad'u-a, 
in Italy. His last name was derived from the original Latin 
designation, Pa-ta'vi-um, for that city. He was the great 
prose poet of the reign of Augustus. Horace and Virgil 
were coevals of his. He was a boy of fifteen years when 
Caesar fell at the base of Pompey's statue. Livy enjoyed 
great contemporary fame. There was no lordlier literary lion 
in the metropolis than he. The story is told of a Spaniard 
of Cadiz that made the journey to the capital expressly 
to set his eyes on the brilliant recounter of the glories of 
Rome. It is good to think that there was then in the world 
enough of generous enthusiasm for letters to give such a 
story currency. 

Besides being an historian, Livy was something of a phi- 
losopher. The things, however, that he wrote as philosopher 
survive only in the mention of Sen'e-ca. The two functions, 
that of philosopher and that of historian, he kept quite dis- 
tinct. He did not write history philosophically. 

Livy's history was a majestic work, covering the whole 
subject of the fortunes of Rome from the founding of the 
city down almost to the beginning of the Christian era. 
What an epic in prose was there ! But of the hundred and 



Livy. 15 

fifty-two books in which the work was written, only thirty- 
five books remain. What we have is highly interesting; but 
what we have not, as well in quality as in quantity, would be 
a far more precious possession. We have lost we know not 
what ; but we guess with certainty that Livy's account of the 
Italian War and his account of the Civil War between Marius 
and Sulla, which are among the many things missing, would 
have thrown on those great chapters of Roman story such 
a light as now is not to be collected from all other sources 
taken together. When the lost books of Livy were lost, 
is not known. The popes were at one time against the 
historian — of all things in the world, because he told super- 
stitious tales ! Some of the popes, it is said, destroyed every 
thing of Livy that fell under their hands. Dis-ra'el-i the elder, 
in his " Curiosities of Literature," has a tantalizing anecdote 
to the effect that a man of letters once found, wrought into a 
battledore with which he was playing, a page of the missing 
part of Livy. Before the scholar could get to him to arrest 
the vandalism, the battledore-maker had already used up the 
last fragment of the whole inestimable manuscript. There 
are not a few other anecdotes current in literary history 
about the lost books of Livy; but the one thing certain is 
that three quarters of the work exists only in epitomes — for- 
tunately executed by some painstaking hand while the origi- 
nal still lived in the world of letters. 

Livy apparently published his work in installments. He 
must have been occupied not less than twenty years in the 
composition. This we gather from the fact that in the last 
parts of the history there are events recorded that did not 
take place until some twenty years subsequently to the issue 
of the first installment. The history has been divided up 
into sets of books, ten each in number, hence called " dec- 
ades." The thirty-five books that remain give us the first 
decade, the third, and the fourth, entire, with half of the 
fifth. There are detached fragments from the rest. 



1 6 College Lati?i Course in English. 

The first decade deals with about five hundred years of 
history, from the founding of Rome to the subjugation by 
Rome of the Sam'nites. This portion of the work has little 
claim, and it makes little claim, to the character of history. 
It is confessedly mythical and legendary, rather than histor- 
ical. But most entertaining narrative Livy makes of his 
material. " The brave days of old " live again, with power — 
a power communicated from vivific style— in his glowing 
pages. 

Take — for a single specimen of the anecdotes of patriotic, 
if pagan, self-devotion, with which the annals of mythical 
Rome are profusely illuminated, but which nowhere else are 
so vividly brilliant as in Livy's telling — this famous legend 
of left-handed Mu'ci-us. "Lars Por'se-na of Clu'si-um," as 
every boy knows out of Macaulay's " Lays of Ancient Rome," 
was marked out by a patriot adventurer from the city for 
death by assassination. A high-born Roman youth, Mucius 
by name, resolved, with the approval of the senate, to pene- 
trate the enemy's lines, and, getting access to Porsena's 
[Por-sen'na's] person, to slay him with a sudden stroke in the 
midst of his friends. By mistake Porsena's secretary was 
vicariously slain ; and now let Livy tell the rest. We use 
Mr. Collins's translation, given in the volume on Livy in 
Ancient Classics for English Readers : 

He [Mucius] was moving off, making a way for himself through the 
crowd with his bloody weapon, when the clamor made the king's guards 
run up, who seized him and dragged him back. Set before the king 
where he sat in state, even in that imminent peril he spoke as if the 
king, and not he, had need to tremble. " I am a citizen of Rome ; men 
call me Caius Mucius. I sought to slay mine enemy. And I have as 
good heart to suffer death as I had to inflict it: our Roman fashion is 
to do and suffer stoutly. Nor is it I alone who bear in my mind this in- 
tent toward thee : there follows . after me a long succession of claimants 
for this glory. Wherefore prepare thyself at once for this conflict : to 
be in jeopardy of life from hour to hour — to find an enemy at the very 
threshold of thy chamber. Such is the war we Roman youth declare 



Livy. 17 

against thee. Thou hast not to dread the battle or the open field ; the 
struggle for thee will be in person against each single antagonist." 
When the king, alike furious with anger and alarmed at the peril, 
threatened him with torture by fire unless he forthwith revealed the plot 
at which he thus darkly hinted — " Lo, here," said he, "that you may 
understand how cheap they hold all pains of the body, who see a grand 
renown in prospect" — and he thrust his hand into the fire on the altar 
just kindled for sacrifice. When he held it there to be consumed, as 
quite unconscious of any sense of pain, the king, well-nigh astounded 
at the marvel, leapt from his seat and bade him be moved away from 
the altar. 

The hated Etruscan was not incapable of generosity. He 
suffered Mucius — thenceforward known in legend by the 
surname Scae'vo-la, (Left-handed) — to escape punishment. 
Sceevola, according to Livy, went off muttering, " by way of 
thanks," as Livy sardonically expresses it, that he was him- 
self but one of three hundred young Romans sworn to do 
likewise. It must have been as uncomfortable for Porsena, 
as Nihilism makes it for the Russian Czar. This incident 
Livy represents to have seriously affected the event of Porse- 
na's siege. According to Livy, Porsena soon, in consequence, 
withdrew from the besetment of the city. Tacitus is not ready 
to go such lengths as does Livy, in rhetorical patriotism. 
Tacitus probably is right. But Livy probably was popular. 

Another legend, approaching nearer, perhaps, the character 
of history, is that of the sack of Rome by the Gauls. There 
seems no question that the event occurred, but the romantic 
and theatric incident and circumstance with which, in Livy's 
narration, the event is surrounded, are doubtless the growth 
of popular tradition, molded and adorned by the taste and 
imagination of the most picturesque of historians. The utter 
ruin of Rome is made by Livy to appear in a light that casts 
a lofty and melancholy dignity upon the figure of the falling 
state. The Gauls have pressed their way to the very walls 
of the city. They find the gates open. The quiet that 
reigned seemed ominous to them. They do not venture at 



18 College Latin Course in English. 

once to enter, suspecting some stratagem. The Romans able 
to bear arms shut themselves up in the Capitol, while the 
common people in general fled hither and thither, as suited 
their several notions of prudence. The older Roman gran- 
dees, however, according to Livy, concerted a novel plan of 
procedure for decorously meeting their fate. The Gauls 
were struck with astonishment at the sight that saluted their 
eyes. Livy says (Mr. Collins translates again) : 

The houses of the lower orders were shut up, but the halls of the 
chief men stood open ; and they [the Gauls] hesitated more at entering 
these than at breaking open such as were closed against them. Thus it 
was not without a certain awe and reverence that they beheld sitting in 
the vestibules of their houses, figures which not only in their costume and 
decorations, whose magnificence seemed to their eyes more than mortal, 
but in the majesty of their looks and bearing, were like unto gods. 
While they stood fixedly regarding them as though they were statues, a 
Gaul is said to have stroked the beard, worn long as it was in those 
days, of one of them, Marcus Pa-pir'i-us, who smote him on the head with 
his ivoiy staff, and woke his wrath ; with that began a general massacre, 
and the rest were killed where they sat. 

The legend — and Livy — found out a way of rescuing Rome 
after all from the very jaws of destruction. The city had 
been pillaged and burned, but the citadel still stood out. 
Parley was held with the barbarians about ransom of what 
remained — famine and pestilence together inclining both 
parties to suspension of war. When the Romans exclaimed 
against false weights brought by the Gauls for weighing out 
the stipulated gold, the barbarian chief scornfully flung his 
sword into the balance, to signify, That shall make the 
weights weigh as heavy as we choose to have them. But, 
behold, when the humiliation of Rome seemed complete, at 
that very instant, Ca-mil'lus, Dictator, was suddenly at hand 
with redemption, to be paid in a different coin, for his coun- 
try. 'Not with gold but with steel, is Rome to be bought 
from her foes,' he cried out. The Gauls were driven out of 
the city. More. They were slain to a man. 



Livy. 19 

Was not Livy, with good reason, an historian popular at 
Rome? And as for the trustworthiness of his gallant tales, 
was there not great Rome herself, the imperial city of the 
Caesars, standing in Livy's day, for the historian to point to 
in triumph as witness to whatever fine things he could say of 
her heroic past? Surely, such a city must have had a his- 
tory as glorious as Livy could paint Rome's. 

One spirited legend more out of Livy's treasury of such, 
and we will pass to something of his that is better entitled 
to credit. The story of Cur'ti-us, as Livy tells it, well sums 
up the Roman's ideal of civic wealth and civic virtue. The 
forum yawned with a chasm in the midst. The gods said 
it would close when the best that Rome owned was cast into 
the pit — then, and not till then. She tried one precious 
thing after another in vain. The bodeful chasm still stretched 
wide its hungry jaws. Livy now : 

Then young Marcus Curtius, a gallant soldier, chid them all for 
doubting that there could be any better thing in Rome than good 
weapons and a stout heart. He called for silence ; and looking toward 
the temples of the immortal gods that crowned the Forum, and toward 
the Capitol, he lifted his hands first to heaven, and then stretching them 
downward, where the gulf yawned before him, in supplication to the 
Powers below, he solemnly devoted himself to death. Mounted on his 
horse, which he had clothed in the most splendid trappings that could be 
found, he leaped, all armed, into the chasm, while crowds of men and 
women showered in after him precious gifts and fruits. 

Of course, upon this costly act of self-sacrifice, there was 
nothing left for the chasm to do, but close up and hold fast 
what it had got. The fable is a splendid allegory of what 
patriots do by thousands upon thousands whenever they 
offer themselves up in battle to die for their country. 

We are now about to enter upon a more consecutive pres- 
entation of a part of the matter of Livy's annals. We need to 
apprise our readers that the present is not an undertaking of 
ours to make any thing like a full exhibition in abstract or 



20 College Latin Course in English. 

extract of what remains to us moderns of Livy's great work. 
That undertaking would require more space than we have at 
command. It would besides transcend the limits which we 
prescribe to ourselves in these volumes. Our aim is strictly 
confined to giving in English about such a proportion of each 
Latin author treated, as would be traversed by the student 
in accomplishing an average college course. We shall give 
more, rather than less; but when we have given as much, we 
shall have fulfilled the promise of this series of books. 

There is probably no part of extant Livy more vividly in- 
teresting, and interesting to a wider audience of minds, 
than is the long and checkered story of that Punic War, 
so-called, in which the figures of Han'ni-bal, of Fa'bi-us, and 
of Scipio [Sip'i-o], loom large and splendid, in mutually ef- 
fective and ennobling contrast. The time never will come 
when men will not be more moved by the fortunes of men, 
individual men, than they are by the fortunes of nations. 
The fact may seem illogical, unreasonable, regrettable, but it 
remains a fact. A fact so obstinate, so insoluble, so redoubt- 
able, we, for our part, shall neither resist nor ignore. We 
unquestioningly select, for the portion of Livy to be laid be- 
fore our readers, the story of Carthage against Rome, revolv- 
ing about those three great national champions, Hannibal on 
the one side, and Fabius with Scipio on the other. It was 
more, far more — that long strife — than a conflict of individ- 
ual leaders, of rival nations, of antagonistic races. It was also 
a war of contending political ideas, of opposing historical 
tendencies. It was now to be decided what type of civiliza- 
tion, what spirit of civil polity, should rule the future. The 
sympathies of readers will almost certainly be enlisted on 
the side of Carthaginian Hannibal doomed beforehand 
to final defeat. Such is the secret magic of a great 
human personality. But we may console ourselves. It was 
far better that Rome should conquer, as she did. In this 
case, at any rate, it was the fitter that survived. 



Livy. 21 

Delenda est Carthago (Carthage must be blotted out) has 
become a proverb of fell resolution adopted against a foe 
that the necessities of self-defense will not suffer to survive. 
Such was the famous sentence of Cato against Carthage ; a 
sentence which Rome at length adopted — to carry it out 
with a bitter literalness never perhaps exceeded in the 
destruction of any other city in the world. The utter oblit- 
eration of Carthage from the earth meant the utter oblitera- 
tion of Carthage from history. Carthage herself perhaps 
never produced literature of any sort. And written history 
that should include Carthage, if Carthage survived — that is, 
Roman history — was, so to speak, about to begin, only as 
Carthage was about to end. It is difficult, accordingly, 
for us now to conceive how important a place among na- 
tions Carthage, an almost unhistoric city, really occupied. 
The fact, however, is that Carthage, when the long duel 
between Carthage and Rome commenced, was apparently 
a full equal of her enemy in promised extent and duration 
of empire. Rome, indeed, had now become supreme 
mistress of Italy. But Carthage, besides her home pos- 
sessions in Africa, had established important connections 
with many points on the Mediterranean coast. She was a 
maritime power, as Rome was not. She had strong foothold 
in Spain. Sar-din'i-a was hers, and Cor'si-ca, and the Ba- 
le-ar'ic Isles. She was stretching a cordon of colonies along 
the border of Sicily, with designs upon that great and rich 
island as a whole. This might justly be deemed an indirect 
menace to Rome. Rome had not long to wait for a desirable 
opportunity to take up the gauntlet that Carthage threw 
down at her feet. The two cities closed in a grapple that, 
having lasted twenty-three years, left Rome in possession of 
Sicily. This struggle is known in history as the First Punic 
War. (The Carthaginians were Phoenicians, and the Phoe- 
nicians were by the Romans called Pceni, whence " Punic " 
as the name of the war.) 



College Latin Course in English. 



The Second Punic War was a greater. The Carthaginian 
hero of it was Hannibal. It is of this second war between 
Carthage and Rome that we shall here let Livy treat. The 
historian had a generous idea of the magnitude of the strug- 
gle. But his idea was not exaggerated. The fortune of the 
world was decided by the event of this war. History per- 
haps — or is this too much to suggest ? — is Indo-European 
instead of being Semitic, because Rome conquered and not 
Carthage. Livy's language about this war will remind read- 
ers of what Thu-cyd'i-des, with so much less justness, said 
four hundred years earlier about the Peloponnesian War. 
The two historians' high estimate of the importance of the 
subjects they undertook to treat, might be accepted as a pledge 
on their part of devoting to the treatment the best exertions 
of which they were capable. The result in either case was a 
masterpiece of historical composition. What Livy, compared 
with Thucydides, lacks in breadth of comprehension and 
in depth of insight, he quite fully makes up in dash and brill- 
iancy of narrative. Livy has the advantage of Thucydides 
in largeness of theme to handle, and in splendor of exploit 
to describe. The passage of Livy that we are about to pre- 
sent, namely, the narrative of the Second Punic War, stands 
as simply an important part of a much larger design, while the 
" Peloponnesian War " of Thucydides was conceived by its 
author as an historical monograph, complete in itself. 

Here is the preface that Livy prefixes to his account of the 
Second Punic War. It marks the beginning of the third 
decade of his work ; that is, the beginning of his twenty-first 
book : 

I claim leave to preface a portion of my history by a remark which 
most historians make at the beginning of their whole work. I am about 
to describe the most memorable war ever waged, the war which the 
Carthaginians, under the leadership of Hannibal, waged against the peo- 
ple of Rome. Never have states or nations with mightier resources met 
in arms, and never had these two peoples themselves possessed such 



Livy, 23 

strength and endurance. The modes of warfare with which they en- 
countered one another were not unfamiliar, but had been tested in the 
First Punic War. Again, so varying was the fortune of battle, so doubt- 
ful the struggle, that they who finally conquered were once the nearer to 
ruin. And they fought, too, with a hate well-nigh greater than their 
strength. Rome was indignant that the conquered should presume to 
attack the conqueror, Carthage that the vanquished had, she thought, 
been subjected to an arrogant and rapacious rule. 

We must go on, and repeat the familiar story that imme- 
diately follows, of the oath taken by young Hannibal of 
enmity to Rome. Readers will like to learn that Livy is a 
source and authority for this picturesque and grim legend of 
Carthaginian patriotism : 

There is a story, too, of Hannibal when, at nine years of age, he was 
boyishly coaxing his father Ham-il'car to take him with him to Spain 
(Hamilcar had just finished the African war, and was sacrificing before 
transporting his army to that country), how the child was set by the 
altar, and there, with his hand upon the victim, was made to swear that, 
so soon as he could, he would be the enemy of the Roman people. 

High-spirited Hamilcar died while Hannibal was 
scarcely more than a boy. Has'dru-bal 
held command of the Carthaginian army 
until he was suddenly slain. Hannibal 
then, still very young, was made leader 
by popular acclamation. We have to 
omit certain details of scandalous gossip 
concerning the relation of youths to their 
elders and chiefs, very true to the life 
of those times, but from the Chris- hamilcar. 

tianized life of these times happily for the most part very 
alien. We come to a spirited portrait in words of one of 
the most remarkable military geniuses the world has ever 
beheld. Livy, in drawing this portrait, goes back a little in 
retrospect of Hannibal's years of youthful service under Has- 
drubal after the untimely death of his own father, Hamilcar: 




24 College Latin Course in English. 

Hannibal was sent to Spain, and instantly on his arrival attracted 
the admiration of the whole army. Young Hamilcar was restored to 
them, thought the veterans, as they saw in him the same animated look 
and penetrating eye, the same expression, the same features. Soon he 
made them feel that his father's memory was but a trifling aid to him in 
winning their esteem. Never had man a temper that adapted itself 
better to the widely diverse duties of obedience and command, till it was 
hard to decide whether he was more beloved by the general or the army. 
There was no one whom Hasdrubal preferred to put in command, when- 
ever courage and persistency were specially needed, no officer under 
whom the soldiers were more confident and more daring. Bold in the 
extreme in incurring peril, he was perfectly cool in its presence. No toil 
could weary his body or conquer his spirit. Heat and cold he bore with 
equal endurance ; the cravings of nature, not the pleasure of the palate, 
determined the measure of his food and drink. His waking and sleep- 
ing hours were not regulated by day and night. Such time as business 
left him, he gave to repose ; but it was not on a soft couch or in stillness 
that he sought it. Many a man often saw him wrapped in his military 
cloak, lying on the ground amid the sentries and pickets. His dress 
was not one whit superior to that of his comrades, but his accoutrements 
and horses were conspicuously splendid. Among the cavalry or the 
infantry he was by far the first soldier; the first in battle, the last to leave 
it when once begun. 

These great virtues in the man were equalled by monstrous vices, 
inhuman cruelty, a worse than Punic perfidy. Absolutely false and 
irreligious, he had no fear of God, no regard for an oath, no scruples. 
With this combination of virtues and vices, he served three years under 
the command of Hasdrubal, omitting nothing which a man who was to be 
a great general ought to do or to see. 

Such, in the admiring, yet hostile, perhaps not wholly well- 
informed, and at any rate probably prejudiced, delineation 
of Livy, was the Carthaginian hero of the Second Punic War. 
To transfer here Livy's whole extended account of this 
struggle for empire and for life, between Carthage and Rome, 
would fill this volume, and even swell it much beyond its in- 
tended size. And such an incorporation from Livy would 
greatly exaggerate the proportion of time given to this author 
in the ordinary college course. Our plan will be to select 
the most salient and most representative incidents and events 



Livy. 25 

of the war, and let the part thus set forth stand in specimen 
of the whole. 

Hannibal had attacked Sa-gun'tum. Saguntum was a 
Spanish town on the E'bro. The question was to whom it 




HANNIBAL. 



belonged. Hannibal solved the question by laying siege to it 
and taking it. Rome, disturbed too late, sent envoys to 
Carthage. The Carthaginian senate must disavow the pro- 
ceedings of Hannibal, or accept a state of war with Rome. 
Parley was attempted by the Carthaginians, but Quin'tus 
Fa'bi-us, in the fashion that became him as Roman, did— 
what Livy thus describes: 

Upon this the Roman gathered his robe into a fold, and said : " Here 
we bring you peace and war ; take which you please." Instantly on 
2 



26 College Latin Course in English. 

the word rose a shout as fierce: "Give us which you please." The 
Roman, in reply, shook out the fold, and spoke again : "I give you 
war." The answer from all was : " We accept it, and in the spirit with 
which we accept it, will we wage it." 

Hannibal was, like Napoleon, a child of destiny. He had 
a dream which dominated him — a dream darkly prophetic of 
his future. Livy relates it with a " so the story goes," to 
save his own credit, at the same time that he saved an inci- 
dent dear to his romantic taste and to his pictorial style. 
The vision came to Hannibal after he had resolved on cross- 
ing the Alps and descending upon Italy. Here is Livy's 
account : 

He saw in a dream, so the story goes, a youth of godlike shape, who 
said that he had been sent by Jupiter to conduct the army of Hannibal 
into Italy; that he was, therefore, to follow and nowhere turn his eyes 
away from him. At first Hannibal followed trembling, neither looking 
around nor behind; after awhile, with the natural curiosity of the human 
mind, as he thought what it could be on which he was forbidden to -look 
back, he could not restrain his eyes; he then saw behind him a serpent 
of marvelous size moving onward with a fearful destruction of trees and 
bushes ; close after this followed a storm-cloud with crashing thunder. 
When he asked what was the monster and what the portent meant, 
he was told it was " the devastation of Italy ; let him go straight on and 
ask no more questions, and leave the fates in darkness." 

Pub'li-us Cor-ne'li-us Scipio, on the part of the Romans, 
advanced against advancing Hannibal. The two hostile 
armies now confront each other, when Scipio inspirits his 
men with a speech. This speech Livy, after the fashion that 
prevailed among ancient historians, gives in full abstract and 
specimen. Of course the speech is constructed for the gen- 
eral by the historian. Such was the dramatic form adopted 
by the historians of antiquity under which to present the 
supposed views, motives, aims, of the characters in their 
story. Scipio seems to have chosen to regard Hannibal in 
something the same light in which Demosthenes, in his 
harangues, chose to regard Alexander the Great. ** A young 



Livy. 27 

madman," he calls the Carthaginian. Hannibal was, in fact, 
just twenty-six years of age when he began this war. " Young " 
he was, but he was not " madman " enough not to know well 
how to manage his men. His madness at least had a re- 
markable method. He first exhibits a spectacle, and then 
he makes a speech. The spectacle consisted of single com- 
bats between prisoners taken in the mountains, with prize 
of freedom promised to the victor — freedom, arms, and a 
charger. Several pairs of prisoners thus fought in pres- 
ence of the army. Hannibal then told his soldiers, ' You 
have witnessed a lively symbol of your own condition. 
You yourselves fight with the Roman army for such a 
prize of victory as that which you have thus seen bestowed 
upon the conquerors in these single combats.' The effect 
of the speech, so emphasized by the spectacle, may be 
imagined. 

The battle that impended was not one of the great battles 
of the war; but when it finally was joined, it went against the 
Romans. Scipio, their general, was wounded. He was res- 
cued by his son. That son was the great Scipio — to be sur- 
named Africanus, in honor of the decisive victory that he 
will hereafter win over Hannibal and the Carthaginians. To 
him that hath shall be given; and Livy, to the greater sub- 
sequent glory of Scipio Africanus, adds also the lesser glory 
of having rescued his imperiled father in this first fight with 
Hannibal — though he says Caelius ascribes the act to a 
Ligurian slave. 

But where, it may be asked, did this hostile encounter 
occur ? It was on the Italian side of the Alps. Hannibal 
had previously performed one of the greatest military feats 
on record, by crossing the Alps with his army. It will not 
do to let this exploit of his pass in silence. We go a step 01 
two back and take up Livy's description. The historian 
begins, it will be observed, with reporting or imagining — 
doubtful which — the impression made on the Carthaginians, 



28 College Latin Course in English. 

born under an African sun, by the first sight of the Alps 
with their visible rigors of cold : 

Though rumor, which usually magnifies the unknown far beyond truth, 
had given some anticipation of the facts, still the near sight of the mount- 
ain-heights, with their snows almost mingling with the sky, the rude huts 
perched on the rocks, cattle and beasts of burden shrivelled with cold, 
human beings unkempt and wild, and all things animate and inanimate 
stiffened with frost, with other scenes more horrible to behold than to 
describe, revived their terror. 

As the vanguard was struggling up the first slopes, the mountain 
tribes showed themselves on the overhanging hills. Had they lain hid 
in some of the obscurer valleys and suddenly rushed out to the attack, 
they must have caused terrible panic and loss. Hannibal ordered a 
halt; the Gauls were sent on to reconnoitre, and when he asceitained 
that here there was no passage for his troops, he pitched his camp in the 
broadest valley he could find, where all around was rugged and precip- 
itous. Then from those same Gauls, mingling and conversing with the 
mountaineers, whom, indeed, in language and manners they resembled, 
he learnt that it was only by day that the pass was barred, and that at 
night all dispersed to their various dwellings. With early dawn he ad- 
vanced to the foot of the hills, as if he meant to push his way by force 
in open day through the defiles. In this feint, preparing a movement 
not really intended, the day was spent, and the camp was fortified on 
the spot on which it had been pitched. But the moment Hannibal 
saw the mountaineers coming down from the hills and the outposts 
weakly manned, he had a multitude of fires lit for show, greater than 
would correspond with the number of troops in camp, and then leaving 
behind him the baggage with the cavalry as well as the greater part of 
the infantry, and taking with him some lightly armed men, the bravest 
he could pick, he rapidly mounted the passages and established himself 
on the very hills which the enemy had occupied. 

At day-break the camp was broken up and the rest of the army began 
to move. The mountaineers on a signal given were now gathering in 
force from their fortresses to one of their regular positions, when sud- 
denly they saw the enemy, some on the heights over their s heads and in 
possession of their own stronghold, the remainder marching through the 
pass. The double impression thus made on their sight and imagination, 
held them for a brief while rooted to the earth. Soon, when they saw 
the hurry in the defiles and how the army was in utter confusion from 
its own disorder, the horses especially being wild with fright, they 



Livy. 29 

thought that, could they in any way increase the panic, it would insure 
the enemy's destruction, and they rushed down the face of the rocks 
they knew so well, whether along pathless steeps or obscure tracks. 
Then, indeed, both the foe and the perils of the place fought against 
the Carthaginians, and while every man strove for himself to get soonest 
out of danger, there was more struggling among the soldiers themselves 
than between them and the enemy. The horses were the most dan- 
gerous hindrance to the army. They were terrified and scared by the 
confused cries which the woods and echoing valleys further multiplied* 
and if they chanced to be struck and wounded, in the wildness of their 
terror they made fearful havoc alike among the men and the baggage of 
every description. The pressure, too, in the defile, each side of which 
was a sheer precipice, hurled numbers down to an immense depth, and 
among them were soldiers with their accoutrements; but it was more 
particularly the beasts with their burdens, which rolled down with just 
such a crash as a falling house. 

Horrible as all this was to behold, Hannibal halted awhile and kept 
his men in their ranks, so as not to aggravate the disorder and panic, 
and then, as soon as he saw a break, in the line, and the danger that the 
army might accomplish the passage safely, indeed, but to no purpose, 
because stript of all their baggage, he hurried down from his position 
on the heights and routed the enemy, but at the same time increased 
the confusion of his own troops. This confusion, however, was quieted 
in a moment when the flight of the mountaineers left the roads clear, 
and all soon marched through the pass not merely in peace, but almost 
in silence. Next he took a fortress, the capital of the district, and some 
villages in the neighborhood, and fed his troops for three days on the 
corn and cattle he had seized. In those three days he accomplished a 
considerable march, as there was not much hindrance from the ground 
or from the mountaineers, whom they had cowed at the outset. 

Then they reached a canton, which, for a mountain district, was 
densely peopled. Here Hannibal was all but cut off, not by open 
fighting, but by his own peculiar arts, treachery and ambuscade. Some 
old men, governors of the fortresses, came to him as envoys, with assur- 
ances that, warned by the salutary examples of the misfortunes of others, 
they preferred to make trial of the friendship rather than of the might of 
the Carthaginians ; that thereupon they would obediently do his bid- 
ding ; and they begged him to accept supplies, guides for his march, 
and hostages as a guarantee of their promises. Hannibal, feeling 
that he must not either rashly trust or slight them, lest refusal might 
make them open enemies, gave them a gracious answer. He accepted 



30 College Latin Course in English. 

the offered hostages, and used the supplies which they had themselves 
brought to the road, but he followed the guides with his army in fighting 
order, not as if he was among a friendly people. His van was formed 
of the elephants and cavalry, while he marched himself in the rear with 
thje main strength of the infantry, anxiously reconnoitring at every step.. 
The moment they entered a narrow pass, dominated on one side by an 
overhanging height, the barbarians sprang out of their ambuscades in 
every direction, attacking in front and rear, discharging missiles and 
coming to close quarters, and rolling down huge stones upon the army. 
It was on the rear that the enemy pressed in greatest force. The infan- 
try column wheeled and faced him ; but it was proved, beyond a doubt, 
that, had not the rear been well strengthened, a terrible disaster would 
have been sustained in that pass. Even as it was, they were brought to 
the extremest jeopardy, and were within a hairsbreadth of destruction. 
For while Hannibal was hesitating about sending his men into the de- 
file because, though he could himself support the cavalry, he had no re- 
serve in his rear for the infantry, the mountaineers rushed on his flanks, 
and, having cut his line in half, barred his advance. One night he had 
to pass without his cavalry aud his baggage. 

Next day, as the barbarians were less active in their attacks, the army 
was again united, and fought its way through the pass, but not without 
loss, which, however, fell more heavily on the beasts of burden than on 
the men. From this point the mountaineers became less numerous ; 
hovering round more like brigands than soldiers, they threatened now 
the van, now the rear, whenever the ground gave them a chance, or 
stragglers in advance or behind offered an opportunity. The elephants, 
though it was a tedious business to drive them along the narrow precipit- 
ous passes, at least protected the troops from the enemy wherever they 
went, inspiring as they did, a peculiar fear in all who were unused to 
approach them. 

On the ninth day they reached the top of the Alps, passing for the 
most part over trackless steeps, and by devious ways, into which they 
were led by the treachery of their guides. Two days they encamped on 
the height, and the men, worn out with hardships and fighting, were 
allowed to rest. Some beasts of burden, too, which had fallen down 
among the crags, found their way to the camp by following the army's 
track. The men were already worn out and wearied with their many 
miseries, when a fall of snow coming with the setting of the Pleiades 
added to their sufferings a terrible fear. At day-break the march com- 
menced, and as the army moved wearily over ground all buried in snow, 
languor and despair were visibly written on every face, when Hannibal 



Livy. 3 1 

stepped to the front, and having ordered a halt on a peak which com- 
manded a wide and distant prospect, pointed to Italy and to the plains 
around the Po, as they lay beneath the heights of the Alps, telling his 
men, " 'Tis the walls not of Italy only but of Rome itself that you are 
now scaling. What remains," he added, " will be a smooth descent; in 
one, or at the most, in two battles we shall have the citadel and capital 
of Italy in our grasp and power." 

The army then began to advance, and now even the enemy attempted 
nothing but some stealthy ambuscades, as opportunity offered. The re- 
mainder, however, of the march proved far more difficult than the as- 
cent, as the Alps for the most part on the Italian side have a shorter and, 
therefore, a steeper slope. In fact the whole way was precipitous, nar- 
row, and slippery, so much so that they could not keep themselves from 
falling, nor could those who had once stumbled retain their foothold. 
Thus they tumbled one over another, and the beasts of burden over the men. 

Next they came to a much narrower pass with walls of rock so per- 
pendicular that a light-armed soldier could hardly let himself down by 
feeling his way, and grasping with his hands the bushes and roots stick- 
ing out around him. The place of old was naturally precipitous, and 
now by a recent landslip it had been broken away sheer to a depth of 
a thousand feet. Here the cavalry halted, as if it must be at the end of 
their route, and Hannibal, wondering what delayed the march, was told 
that the rock was impassable'. Then he went himself to examine the 
spot. There seemed to be no doubt that he must lead his army round 
by pathless and hitherto untrodden slopes, however tedious might be the 
circuit. This route, however, was impracticable; while indeed on last 
season's still unmelted snow lay a fresh layer of moderate depth. The 
foot of the first comer found a good hold on the soft and not very deep 
drift, but when it had been once trampled down under the march of such 
a host of men and beasts, they had to walk on the bare ice beneath, and 
the liquid mud from the melting snow. Here there was a horrible 
struggle. The slippery ice allowed no firm foothold, and indeed betrayed 
the foot all the more quickly on the slope, so that whether a man 
helped himself to rise by his hands or knees, his supports gave way, and 
he fell again. And here there were no stalks or roots to which hand 
or foot could cling. Thus there was incessant rolling on nothing but 
smooth ice or slush of snow. The beasts broke through, occasionally 
treading down even to the very lowest layer of snow, and when they fell, 
as they wildly struck out with their hoofs in their efforts to rise, they cut 
clean to the bottom, till many of them stuck fast in the hard and deep- 
frozen ice, as if caught in a trap. 



32 College Latin Course in English. 

At last, when both men and beasts were worn out with fruitless exertion, 
they encamped on a height, in a spot which with the utmost difficulty 
they had cleared ; so much snow had to be dug out and removed. The 
soldiers were then marched off to the work of making a road through 
the rock, as there only was a passage possible. Having to cut into the 
stone, they heaped up a huge pile of wood from the great trees in the 
neighborhood^ which they had felled and lopped. As soon as there was 
strength enough in the wind to create a blaze they lighted the pile, and 
melted the rocks, as they heated, by pouring vinegar on them. The 
burning stone was cleft open with iron implements, and then they re- 
lieved the steepness of the slopes by gradual winding tracks, so that even 
the elephants as well as the other beasts could be led down. Four days 
were spent in this rocky pass, and the beasts almost perished of hunger, as 
the heights generally are quite bare, and such herbage as grows is buried in 
snow. Amid the lower slopes were valleys, sunny hills, too, and streams, 
and woods beside them, and spots now at last more worthy to be the 
habitations of man. Here they sent the beasts to feed, and the men, worn 
out with the toil of road-making, were allowed to rest. In the next three 
days they reached level ground, and now the country was less wild, as 
was also the character of the inhabitants. 

Such on the whole was the march which brought them to Italy, in the 
fifth month, according to some authors, after leaving New Carthage, 
the passage of the Alps having occupied*fifteen days. 

The foregoing is powerful description ; but it lacks the 
traits that would naturally mark description written by an eye- 
witness and sharer of the scenes and experiences described. 
It is conceived from the imagination alone, working with a 
few points given, rather than from the memory and imagina- 
tion working together, with all the material at command. It 
contrasts in essential character with the life-like delineations 
of Xenophon, for example, in the Anabasis, who saw all and 
was himself a great part. Livy's description is valuable, more 
perhaps as rhetoric, than as history. 

What Hannibal's route was in crossing the Alps is not 
certainly known. Po-lyb'i-us is a Greek historian who lived 
in the time of the Second Punic War. His authority is con- 
sidered good, and his account is to a considerable extent 
parallel with that of Livy. The two historians are here at 



Livy. 33 

variance. The route indicated by Polybius is thought to be 
that of the Little St. Bernard. The weight of recent opin- 
ion lies on the side of Polybius. 

Military operations, attended with various fortune, more 
often favorable to the Carthaginians, followed that first bat- 
tle in which the Romans were beaten. The great battle, or 
rather the great Roman disaster, of Thras-y-me'nus, was near. 
This celebrated action we must presently let Livy describe 
at full. 

It is a marked feature of Roman history, as Roman history 
is written by Livy and by Tacitus, that chapters come in at 
intervals throughout their works, recording omens that 
occurred. The Romans were a profoundly superstitious 
people. They lived under as it were a shadow of the sinister 
supernatural all the time. We shall not be able to make a 
full due impression of the effect which these recurring lists 
of omens observed, produce on the mind of the reader of the 
original works. To do so would require the reproduction of 
a considerable number of these formidable and gloomy 
catalogues; and that would occupy too much of our space. 
But it is the quantity, not less than the quality, of such 
material, together with what seems the periodicity of its re- 
turn to view, that oppresses the imagination of one occupied 
in reading the full text of the native historians of Rome. 
We give at this point a single catalogue of omens which 
must stand as representative of its kind. The following pas- 
sage occurs near the opening of the second book of that 
third decade of Livy, with which we are now concerned. 
The disaster of Thrasymenus (Tras-u-men'nus is the more 
recent orthography) impended for the Romans. The Ro- 
mans meantime were oppressed with the gloomiest fears : 

These fears were increased by trie tidings of marvels which now came 
from many places at once. Some soldiers' spears in Sicily had burst into 
a blaze ; so too in Sardinia had the staff which an officer held in his 
hand as he went his rounds inspecting the sentries on the wall ; two 



34 College Latin Course in English. 

shields had sweated blood ; certain soldiers had been struck by light- 
ning ; there had been seen an eclipse of the sun ; at Prse-nes'te blazing 
stones had fallen from the sky ; at Arpi shields had been seen in the 
sky, and the sun had seemed to fight with the moon ; at Capua two 
moons had risen in the day-time ; the stream at Cae're had flowed half 
blood ; gouts of blood had been seen on the water that dripped from the 
spring of Hercules ; reapers in the field near Antium had seen the ears 
fall all bloody into the basket ; at Fa-le'ri-i the sky had seemed parted 
by a huge cleft, while an overpowering light shone forth from the open- 
ing; certain oracle tablets had spontaneously shrunk, and on one that 
fell out were the words, " Mars shakes his spear ; " at the same time, 
at Rome, sweat came out on the statue of Mars that stands in the Appian 
Road by the images of the wolves ; at Cap'u-a the sky had seemed to be 
on fire, and a moon to fall in the midst of a shower. Then men began 
to believe less solemn marvels. Some persons had had goats become 
sheep ; a hen had changed into a cock, and a cock into a hen. The 
consul gave the whole story at length, as it had been told him, at the 
same time introducing into the Senate those who vouched for it, and 
asked the opinion of the House on the religious aspect of the matter. 

Readers will wish to see what the practical Romans con- 
sidered ought to be done under such gruesome circum- 
stances : 

It was resolved that such expiation should be made as these portents 
demanded, with victims, some of which should be full-grown, some suck- 
lings; that public prayers should be offered during tliree days at every 
shrine. Every thing else was to be done after the College of the Ten 
had inspected the holy books, in such fashion as they might declare 
from the prophecies to be pleasing to the gods. They ordered that the 
first offering, of gold weighing fifty pounds, should be made to Jupitei - , 
that to Juno and Mi-ner'va offerings of silver should be presented ; that 
full-grown victims should be sacrificed to Juno the Queen on the Av'en- 
tine Hill, and to Juno the Preserver at La-nu'vi-um ; that the matrons, 
collecting a sum of money, as much as it might be convenient for each 
to contribute, should carry it as an offering to Juno the Queen on the 
Aventine ; that a religious feast should be held, and that even the very 
freedwomen should raise contributions according to their means for a 
gift to the goddess Feronia. After all this the College of the Ten sacri- 
ficed full-grown victims in the market-place at Ardea. Last of all, as 
late as December, a sacrifice was made at the temple of Saturn in Rome ; 
a religious feast was ordered (furnished by the Senators) and a public 



Livy. 35 

banquet ; and a festival of Saturn to last a day and a night proclaimed 
throughout Rome. This day the people were enjoined to keep and ob- 
serve as a holiday forever. 

All did not avail. The overhanging ruin fell. 

Hannibal struggled forward in invasion against adverse cir- 
cumstances that might well have cowed a less resolute spirit 
Fla-min'i-us, the Roman consul in command, will presently 
afford the Carthaginian his coveted opportunity. Flaminius 
was a headstrong and fiery soul that could brook neither 
opposition nor delay. Defying every expostulation dis- 
suasive from the plan, he resolved on giving Hannibal bat- 
tle. His soldiers believed in Flaminius but too well. Their 
trust was their ruin and his own. 

Fiercely from the council of war unanimous against him, 
the foolhardy Flaminius burst forth with orders to pluck up 
the standard and advance upon Hannibal. The sequel shall 
be told in Livy's own words : 

Flaminius himself leapt upon his horse, when lo ! in a moment the 
horse fell, throwing the consul over his head. Amid the terror of all who 
stood near — for this was an ill omen for the beginning of a campaign — 
came a message to say that the standard could not be wrenched from the 
ground, though the standai-d-bearer had exerted all his strength. Turn- 
ing to the messenger, the consul said, " Perhaps you bring me a dispatch 
from the Senate, forbidding me to fight. Go, tell them to dig the stand- 
ard out, if their hands are so numb with fear that they cannot wrench it 
up." The army then began its march. The superior officers, not to 
speak of their having dissented from the plan, were alarmed by these 
two portents ; the soldiers generally were delighted with their head- 
strong chief. Full of confidence, they thought little on what their con- 
fidence was founded. 

Hannibal devastated, with all the horrors of war, the country between 
Cor-to'na and Lake Trasumennus, seeking to infuriate the Romans into 
avenging the sufferings of their allies. They had now reached a spot made foi 
an ambuscade, where the lake comes up close under the hills of Cortona. 
Between them is nothing but a very narrow road, for which room seems 
to have been purposely left. Farther on is some comparatively broad, 
level ground. From this rise the hills, and here in the open plain Han- 



$6 College Latin Course in English. 

nibal pitched a camp for himself and his African and Spanish troops 
only ; his slingers and other light-armed troops he marched to the rear 
of the hills ; his cavalry he stationed at the mouth of the defile, behind 
some rising ground which conveniently sheltered them. When the Ro- 
mans had once entered the pass and the cavalry had barred the way, all 
would be hemmed in by the lake and the hills. 

Flaminius had reached the lake at sunset the day before. On the 
morrow, without reconnoitering and while the light was still uncertain, 
he traversed the narrow pass. As his army began to deploy into the 
widening plain, he could see only that part of the enemy's force which 
was in front of him ; he knew nothing of the ambuscade in his rear and 
above his head. The Carthaginian saw his wish accomplished. He 
had his enemy shut in by the lake and the hills and surrounded by his 
own troops. He gave the signal for a general charge, and the attacking 
columns flung themselves on the nearest points. To the Romans the 
attack was all the more sudden and unexpected because the mist from 
the lake lay thicker on the plains than on the heights, while the hostile 
columns on the various hills had been quite visible to each other, and 
had, therefore, advanced in concert. As for the Romans, with the shout 
of battle rising all around them, before they could see plainly, they found 
themselves surrounded, and fighting begun in their front and their flanks 
before they could form in order, get ready their arms, or draw their 
swords. 

Amidst universal panic the consul showed all the courage that could 
be expected in circumstances so alarming. The broken ranks, in which 
every one was turning to catch the discordant shouts, he reformed as 
well as time and place permitted, and, as far as his presence or his voice 
could reach, bade his men stand their ground and fight. " It is not by 
prayers," he cried, " or entreaties to the gods, but by strength and 
courage that you must win your way out. The sword cuts a path 
through the midst of the battle ; and the less fear, there for the most 
part, the less danger." But, such was the uproar and confusion, neither 
encouragements nor commands could be heard ; so far were the men 
from knowing their standards, their ranks, or their places, that they had 
scarcely presence of mind to snatch up their arms and address them to 
the fight, and some found them an overwhelming burden rather than a 
protection. So dense too was the mist that the ear was of more serv- 
ice than the eye. The groans of the wounded, the sound of blows on 
body or armor, the mingled shouts of triumph or panic, made them turn 
this way and that an eager gaze. Some would rush in their flight on a 
dense knot of combatants and become entangled \p. the mass ; others, re- 



Livy. 37 

turning to the battle, would be carried away by the crowd of fugitives. 
But after awhile, when charges had been vainly tried in ever}' direction, 
when it was seen that the hills and the lake shut them in on either side, 
and the hostile lines in front and rear, when it was manifest that the 
only hope of safety lay in their own right hands and swords, then every 
man began to look to himself for guidauce and for encouragement, and 
there began afresh what was indeed a new battle. No battle was it with 
its three ranks of combatants, its vanguard before the standards, and its 
second line fighting behind them, with every soldier in his own legion, 
cohort, or company : chance massed them together, and each man's im- 
pulse assigned him his post, whether in the van or rear. So fierce was 
their excitement, so intent were they on the battle, that not one of the 
combatants felt the earthquake which laid whole quarters of many 
Italian cities in ruins, changed the channels of rapid streams, drove the 
sea far up into rivers, and brought down enormous landslips from the 
hills. 

For nearly three hours they fought fiercely every-where. but with es- 
pecial rage and fury round the consul. It was to him that the flower 
of the army attached themselves. He, wherever he found his troops 
pressed hard or distressed, was indefatigable in giving help ; conspicuous 
in his splendid arms, the enemy assailed and his fellow-Romans defended 
him with all their might. At last an Insubrian trooper (his name was 
Ducarius), recognizing him also by his face, cried to his comrades, " See! 
this is the man who slaughtered our legions, and laid waste our fields 
and our city ; I will offer him as a sacrifice to the shades of my coun- 
trymen whom he so foully slew." Putting spurs to his horse, he charged 
through the thickest of the enemy, struck down the armor-bearer who 
threw himself in the way of his furious advance, and ran the consul 
through with his lance. When he would have stripped the body, some 
veterans thrust their shields between and hindered him. 

Then began the flight of a great part of the army. And now neither 
lake nor mountain checked their rush of panic ; by every defile and 
height they sought blindly to escape, and arms and men were heaped 
upon each other. Many finding no possibility of flight, waded into the 
shallows at the edge of the lake, advanced until they had only head and 
shoulders above the water, and at last drowned themselves. Some in 
the frenzy of panic endeavored to escape by swimming ; but the endeavor 
was endless and hopeless, and they either sunk in the depths when their 
courage failed them, or they wearied themselves in vain till they could 
hardly struggle back to the shallows, where they were slaughtered in 
crowds by the enemy's cavalry which had now entered the water. 



38 College Latin Course i?i English. 

Nearly six thousand of the vanguard made a determined rush through 
the enemy, and got clear out of the defile, knowing nothing of what was 
happening behind them. Halting on some high ground, they could 
only hear the shouts of men and clashing of arms, but could not learn or 
see for the mist how the day was going. It was when the battle was 
decided that the increasing heat of the sun scattered the mist and cleared 
the sky. The bright light that now rested on hill and plain showed a 
ruinous defeat and a Roman army shamefully routed. Fearing that 
they might be seen in the distance and that the cavalry might be sent 
against them, they took up their standards and hurried away with all 
the speed they could. The next day, finding their situation generally 
desperate, and starvation also imminent, they capitulated to Hannibal, 
who had overtaken them with the whole of his cavalry, and who pledged 
his word that if they would surrender their arms, they should go free, 
each man having a single garment. The promise was kept with Punic 
faith by Hannibal, who put them all in chains. 

Such was the famous fight at Trasumennus, memorable as few other 
disasters of the Roman people have been. Fifteen thousand men fell 
in the battle; ten thousand, flying in all directions over Etruria, made 
by different roads for Rome. Of the enemy two thousand five hundred 
fell in the battle. Many died afterward of their wounds. Other authors 
speak of a loss on both sides many times greater. I am myself averse 
to the idle exaggeration to which writers are so commonly inclined, and 
I have here followed, as my best authority, Fabius, who was actually 
contemporary with the war. Hannibal released without ransom all the 
prisoners who claimed Latin citizenship; the Romans he imprisoned. 
He had the corpses of his own men separated from the vast heaps of 
dead, and buried. Careful search was also made for the body of Fla- 
minius, to which he wished to pay due honor, but it could not be found. 

At Rome the first tidings of this disaster brought a terror-stricken and 
tumultuous crowd into the Forum. The matrons wandered through the 
streets and asked all whom they met what was this disaster of which news 
had just arrived, and how the army had fared. A crowd, thick as a 
thronged assembly, with eyes intent upon the Senate-house, called aloud 
for the magistrates, till at last, not long before sunset, the praetor, 
Mar'cus Pom-po / ni-us, said, " We have been beaten in a great battle." 
Nothing more definite than "this was said by him ; but each man had 
reports without end to tell his neighbor, and the news which they car- 
ried back to their homes was that the consul had perished with a great 
part of his troops, that the few who had survived were either dispersed 
throughout Etruria, or taken prisoners by the enemy. 



Livy. 39 

The mischances of the beaten army were not more numerous than the 
anxieties which distracted the minds of those whose relatives had served 
under Flaminius. All were utterly ignorant how this oi" that kinsman 
had fared ; no one even quite knew what to hope or to fear. On the 
morrow, and for some days after, there stood at the gates a crowd in 
which the women even outnumbered the men, waiting to see their rela- 
tives or hear some tidings about them. They thronged round all whom 
they met, with incessant questions, and could not tear themselves away, 
least of all leave any acquaintance, till they had heard the whole story 
to an end. Different indeed were their looks as they turned away from 
the tale which had filled them either with joy or grief, and friends 
crowded round to congratulate or console them as they returned to their 
homes. The women were most conspicuous for their transports and 
their grief. Within one of the very gates, a woman unexpectedly meeting 
a son who had escaped, died, it is said, in his embrace ; another who had 
had false tidings of her son's death and sat sorrowing at home, expired 
from excessive joy when she caught sight of him entering the house. 
The praetors for some days kept the Senate in constant session from 
sunrise to sunset, deliberating who was to lead an army, and what army 
was to be led against the victorious foe, 

The foregoing, if not literally to the life, is surely very life- 
like. Livy is an enchanting writer. It is difficult to pass 
by any thing, where every thing is so fine. Lu-cre'ti-us, the 
great Roman poet, has a celebrated passage — we shall by and 
by see it — describing the not wholly unpleasing emotions 
with which a spectator safe on shore views a distressed vessel 
at sea. Not unlike the mixed emotion of such supposed spec- 
tator was, perhaps, the comfortable pride with which Livy 
could himself look back, and summon his readers to look 
back, on the forlorn estate, so splendidly in the event to be 
relieved and retrieved, of Rome broken by Hannibal. 

Other reverses to Roman arms followed close upon the 
overthrow of Trasumennus. An unprecedented expedient 
was adopted. A dictator was created, the dictator being 
Fabius Maximus. This is that memorable master of delay, 
destined at last to save Rome by a long course of strongly 
doing nothing. He stood simply a rock on which Hannibal 




40 College Latin Course in English. 

dashed himself to pieces — rather he was a yielding mountain 
of sand on which the sea sought in vain to deliver a shock. 
The unprecedented thing about the dictatorship of Fabius 
Maximus was not that he was made dictator, but that he 
was made dictator directly by the people, no consul inter- 
vening. The consul was absent, and the necessity would not 
wait for his return. Livy is subsequently — somewhat out of 
place, it would seem — at pains to explain a fact which he 
takes credit to himself for observing — that Fabius was really 
not proper dictator at all, but only pro-dictator. 
Mar'cus Min-u'ci-us Rufus was joined to Fa- 
bius, as master of horse. It was harnessing to- 
gether in one team a restive and a restless steed 
— a steed that would not stir, and a steed that 
fabius. would not stand still. The Romans, with all their 
practical genius for war and statesmanship, made, from the 
foundation of the Republic down to the foundation of the 
Empire, the singular, the almost inexplicable, blunder of 
dividing administrative responsibility between two men, 
placed together at the head of affairs. It is a marvel that 
they should have acted thus, but the marvel is more that, 
thus acting, they should have prospered as they did. Their 
prosperity, enjoyed in spite of this folly of theirs, can only 
be attributed to the qualities of the national character. But 
we must not judge rashly. For us, at this remove of time 
and circumstance, it is, perhaps, unwarranted to pronounce 
positively against the good sense of the Romans in their 
frame-work of government. It may have been wise jealousy 
of kingly power that made them divide the kingly power be- 
tween two consuls. Each consul should act as effectual 
watch against attempt, on the part of the other, to grasp at 
sovereign sway, to the detriment of that aristocratical liberty 
so dear to the Roman heart. 

The policy, and the effects of the policy, adopted by Fabius 
Cunctator (Fabius Delayer), are thus sketched by Livy: 



Livy. 41 

Always reconnoitering his ground most carefully, he advanced against 
the enemy, resolved nowhere to risk any thing more than necessity might 
compel. The first day that he pitched his camp in sight of the enemy 
(the place was not far from Arpi), Hannibal, without a moment's delay, 
led out his men and offered battle. When he saw that all was quiet in 
the Roman army, and that there was no sign of any stir in their camp, 
he returned to his quarters, loudly exclaiming that at last the martial 
spirit of Rome was broken — they had made open confession of defeat 
and yielded the palm of glory and valor. But in his heart was a secret 
fear that he had now to deal with a general very different from Flamin- 
ius or Sempronius, and that, taught by disasters, the Romans had at last 
found a general equal to himself. He felt at once afraid of the wariness 
of the new dictator ; of his firmness he had not yet made trial, and so 
began to harass and provoke him by repeatedly moving his camp and 
wasting under his eyes the territory of the allies. At one time he would 
make a rapid march and disappear; at another he would make a sudden 
halt, concealed in some winding road, where he hoped that he might catch 
his antagonist descending to the plain. Fabius continued to move his 
forces along high ground, preserving a moderate distance from the enemy, 
neither letting him out of his sight nor encountering him. He kept his 
soldiers within their camp, unless they were required for some necessary 
service. When they went in quest of forage or wood, it was not in small 
parties or at random. Pickets of cavalry and light troops were told off 
and kept in readiness to meet sudden alarms, a constant protection to 
his own troops, a constant terror to the vagrant marauders of the enemy. 
He refused to stake his all on the hazard of a general engagement, but 
slight encounters, of little importance with a refuge so near, could be safely 
ventured on ; and a soldiery demoralized by former disasters were thus 
habituated to think more hopefully of their own courage and good luck. 

The relation in which Rufus placed himself to Fabius is 
indicated by Livy in the following sentences : 

But these sober counsels found an adversary not only in Hannibal, 
but quite as much in his own master of the horse, who, headstrong and 
rash in counsel and intemperate in speech, was kept from ruining his 
country only by the want of power. First to a few listeners, then open- 
ly before the ranks of the army, he stigmatized his commander as more 
indolent than deliberate, more cowardly than cautious, fastening on 
him failings which were akin to his real virtues, and seeking to exalt 
himself by lowering his chief — a vile art, which has often thriven by a 
too successful practice. 



42 College Latin Course in English. 

Hannibal spread consternation among the Italian allies of 
Rome, but they stood fast in their loyalty. Their steadfast- 
ness inspires Livy to make the following patriotically self- 
complacent remark : 

The truth was that they were under a righteous and moderate rule, 
and they yielded — and this is the only true bond of loyalty — a willing 
obedience to their betters. 

Fabius had any thing but a tranquil time of it in keeping 
resolutely quiet. Rufus was constantly a thorn in the side 
of his impassible commander. Livy invents for this man — 
your ideal demagogue he was, according to Livy — some very 
spirited harangues in character, from one of which we must 
have a representative sentence or two. The Roman army 
sitting still, while under their very eyes fire and sword in 
Carthaginian hands were wasting Roman allies, Rufus broke 
out : 

" Have we come hither to see, as though it were some delightful 
spectacle, our allies wasted by fire and sword ? . . . It is folly to think 
that the war can be finished by sitting still and praying. You must take 
your arms ; you must go down to the plain ; you must meet the enemy 
man to man. It is by boldness and action that the power of Rome has 
grown, not by these counsels of indolence, which only cowards call 
caution." 

The effect of seditious utterances like these from Rufus, 
was vicious, but it served only to set the firmness of Fabius 
in stronger light. Livy says : 

Fabius had to be on his guard against his own men just as much as 
against the enemy, and made them feel that they could not conquer his 
resolution. Though he knew well that his policy of delay was odious, 
not only in his own camp, but also at Rome, yet he steadfastly adhered 
to the same plan of action, and so let the summer wear away. 

An incident given by Livy will illustrate the course of the 
Fabian campaign : 

Man-ci'nus was one of the crowd of youths who frequently listened 
to the fierce harangues of the master of the horse. At first he moved 



Livy. 43 

simply as the leader of a reconnaissance, watching the enemy from a 
place of safety, but when he saw the Numidian troops scattered every- 
where in the villages, and even cut off a few of them by a sudden sur- 
prise, he was at once full of the thought of battle, and wholly forgot the 
dictator's instructions, which were that he should advance as far as he 
safely could, but should retreat before he could be seen by the enemy. 
The Numidians, now attacking, now retreating, drew him on, his men 
and horses alike exhausted, to the very rampart of their camp. Here 
Carthalo, who was in supreme command of the cavalry, charged at full 
gallop, sent his adversary flying before he came within javelin throw, 
and followed the fugitives for five miles continuously. When Mancinus 
saw that the enemy would not desist from the pursuit, and that he had 
no hope of escaping, he encouraged his men, and turned to fight, though 
in no respect was he a match for his foe. And so he and the best of his 
troopers were surrounded and slain. 

Hannibal was a famous master of stratagem, Here is a 
specimen of his ready resource in that kind. The expedient 
described was adopted by Hannibal to extricate himself 
from a desperate situation in which he became involved, a 
situation much resembling the situation in which he had him- 
self previously involved the Romans. Now Livy : 

The deception was thus arranged. — Firewood was collected from all 
the country round, and bundles of twigs and dry fagots were fastened to 
the horns of oxen, of which he had many, from the plundered rural dis- 
tricts, both broken and unbroken to the plow. Upward of two thou- 
sand oxen were thus treated, and Hasdrubal was intrusted with the 
business of driving this herd, with their horns alight, on to the hills, 
more particularly, as he best could, to those above the passes occupied 
by the enemy. 

In the dusk of evening, he silently struck his camp ; the oxen were 
driven a little in front of the standards. When they reached the foot of 
the mountain, where the roads narrowed, the signal was immediately 
given to hurry the herd with their horns alight up the slope of the hills. 
They rushed on, goaded into madness by the terror of the flames which 
flashed from their heads, and by the heat which soon reached the flesh 
at the i-oot of their horns. At this sudden rush all the thickets seemed 
to be in a blaze, and the very woods and mountains to have been fired ; 
and when the beasts vainly shook their heads, it seemed as if men were 
running about in every direction. The troops posted in the pass, seeing 



44 College Latin Course in English. 

fires on the hill-tops and above them, fancied that they had been sur- 
rounded, and left their position. They made for the loftiest heights as 
being their safest route, for it was there that the fewest flashes of light 
were visible ; but even there they fell in with some of the oxen which had 
strayed from their herd. When they saw them at a distance, they stood 
thunderstruck at what seemed to be the miracle of oxen breathing 
fire. As soon as it was seen to be nothing but a human contrivance, 
they suspected some deep stratagem and fled in wilder confusion than 
ever. They also fell in with some of the enemy's light-armed troops, 
but both sides were equally afraid in the darkness to attack, and so they 
remained until dawn. Meanwhile Hannibal had led his whole army 
through the pass, cutting off, as he went, some of his opponents, and 
pitched his camp in the territory of Allifse. 

At the same time with the warlike operations carried 
on by Hannibal and Fabius, there were warlike opera- 
tions between Carthage and Rome in progress in Spain. 
But we follow here not so much the fortune of the war, 
as the fortune of Hannibal pitted against his successive an- 
tagonists. 

Fabius did not conduct his command in a manner to suit 
the wishes of Hannibal. In fact, Fabius did not suit any 
body's wishes in his manner of carrying on the war. His 
own soldiers chafed, and his countrymen at home were in- 
dignant and restless. Hannibal artfully contrived to exas- 
perate the prevalent feeling against Fabius still more. What 
the Carthaginian wanted was a foe that would fight. He 
hoped by making Fabius unpopular at Rome to have that 
general ousted from his command. The chance then was 
that the senate would send some general against him that he 
could entice into battle. The following was the deep trick 
that Hannibal played. Livy: 

Deserters had pointed out to him the dictator's estate, and he had 
given orders that, while every thing round it was leveled to the ground, 
it should be kept safe from fire and sword and all hostile violence, hoping 
that this forbearance might be thought the consideration for some secret 
agreement. 



Lwy, 45 

But the virtue of Fabius was more than a match for the 
cunning of Hannibal. That very estate of the Roman, so 
insidiously spared by his crafty antagonist, became, with- 
out design or consciousness perhaps on Fabius's part, the 
means of his own complete vindication. There had been an 
exchange of prisoners between the two armies. One stipu- 
lation was that whichever party received back the greater 
number of men, should pay money to the other, at the rate 
of two pounds and a half of silver for every head in excess. 
Hannibal brought Fabius in debt for the ransom of two hun- 
dred and forty-seven prisoners. The senate, taking offense, 
because not previously consulted, were slow to hand over 
the money. Fabius thereupon, through his son, sold the 
estate that Hannibal had spared and, thus enabled to do 
so, discharged the public obligation out of his own private 
fortune. 

But the Commons of Rome added to the burden that 
Fabius was bearing for his country. A bill was passed, ad- 
vancing the factious master of horse to equality in command 
with the dictator himself. Livy very finely describes the 
splendid serenity of conscious power and of conscious patri- 
otism, with which, under the sting of this indignity inflicted 
by his countrymen upon him, Fabius pauselessly pursued 
his way back to his army from his visit to Rome : 

All men, whether at Rome or in the army, whether friends or foes, 
took the bill as an intentional insult to the dictator. Not so the dicta- 
tor himself. In the same dignified spirit in which he had borne the 
charges made against him before the populace, he now bore the wrong 
which the Commons inflicted in their rage. The dispatch from the 
Senate announcing the equalization of military authority reached him on 
his way. Confident that the commander's skill could not be equalized 
along with the right to command, he returned to the army with a soul 
that neither his fellow-citizens nor the enemy could subdue. 

If Rufus was delighted, not less delighted was Hannibal. 
The Roman army was divided, and two separate camps were 



46 College Latin Course in English. 

formed. This latter idea was the preference of Rufus. Livy 
has few more eloquent passages than that in which he de- 
scribes the result. The result was almost too striking to be 
true. It reads more like poetry than like history. Here it 
is in Livy's incomparable narrative : 

Hannibal was now doubly delighted, and not a single movement of 
his foe escaped him. The deserters told him much, and he learnt much 
from his own spies. He would entrap in his own fashion the frank 
rashness of Minucius, while the experienced Fabius had lost half of his 
strength. There was some rising ground between the camp of Minucius 
and that of the Carthaginians, and it was clear that whoever should oc- 
cupy it, would thereby make the enemy's position less favorable. It was 
not so much Hannibal's desire to gain this without fighting, though that 
would have been worth the attempt, as to find in it the occasion of a battle 
with Minucius, who would, he was quite sure, sally forth to oppose him. 
All the ground between them seemed at first sight useless for purposes of 
ambush. Not only had it no vestige of wood about it, but it was with- 
out even a covering of brambles. In reality, nature made it to conceal 
an ambush, all the more because no hidden danger could be feared in 
so bare a valley. In its windings were caverns, some of them large 
enough to hold two hundred armed men. Into these hiding places, 
wherever there was one which could be conveniently occupied, he in- 
troduced five thousand infantry and cavalry. Still in so exposed a 
valley the stratagem might be discovered by the incautious movement of 
a single soldier, or by the gleam of arms, and he therefore sent a few 
troops at early dawn to occupy the hill mentioned before, and so to dis- 
tract the attention of the enemy. To see them was to conceive at once 
a contempt for their scanty numbers. Every man begged for the task of 
dislodging the enemy and occupying the place. Conspicuous among 
these senseless braggarts was the general himself, as he called his men 
to arms and assailed the enemy with idle threats. First he sent his light 
troops, then his cavalry in close array ; at last seeing that the enemy 
were receiving re-enforcements, he advanced with his legions in order of 
battle. 

Hannibal, too, as the conflict waxed fiercer and his troops were hard 
pressed, sent again and again infantry and cavalry to their support, till 
his line of battle was complete, and both sides were fighting with their 
whole strength. First of all the Roman light-armed troops, attacking, 
as they did, from below an elevation already occupied, were repulsed and 
thrust back, carrying panic with them into the cavalry behind and flying 



Livy. 47 

until they reached the standards of the legions. It was the infantry that 
alone stood firm amidst the route and seemed likely, if once they had 
had to fight a regular battle in face of the enemy, to be quite a match for 
him. The successful action of a few days before had given them 
abundance of courage ; but the ambushed troops unexpectedly rose upon 
them, charged them on the flank and in the rear, and spread such confu- 
sion and panic that they lost all heart for fighting and all hope of escape. 

Fabius first heard the cry of terror ; then saw from afar the broken 
lines. "It is true," he cried, "disaster has overtaken rashness, but not 
sooner than I feared. They made him equal to Fabius, but he sees that 
Hannibal is his superior both in courage and in good fortune. Another 
time, however, will do for angry reproof and censure ; now advance the 
standards beyond the rampart. Let us wring from the enemy his victory, 
from our countrymen the confession of error." 

Many had already fallen and many were looking for the chance to fly, 
when the army of Fabius, as suddenly as if it had dropped from heaven, 
appeared to help them. Before javelins were thrown or swords crossed, 
it checked the Romans in their headlong flight, the enemy in the fierce 
eagerness of their attack. Where the ranks had been broken and the 
men scattered hither and thither, they hurried from all sides to the un- 
broken lines ; larger bodies had reti-eated together, these now wheeled 
round to face the enemy and formed square, sometimes slowly retiring, 
sometimes standing in firm and close array. By the time that the beaten 
army and the unbroken army had all but combined into a single force 
and were advancing against the enemy, Hannibal gave the signal for 
retreat, thus openly confessing that, as he had conquered Minucius, so 
he had himself been worsted by Fabius. 

Returning to the camp late on this day of checkered fortune, Minucius 
assembled his troops. " Soldiers," he said, " I have often heard that the 
best man is he who can tell us himself what is the right thing ; that 
next comes he who listens to good advice ; and that he who cannot 
advise himself or submit to another, has the meauest capacity of all. 
Since the best blessing of heart and understanding has been denied us, 
let us hold fast that next best gift which is between the two, and while 
we learn to rule, make up our minds to obey the wise. Let us join our 
camp to the camp of Fabius. TVhen we have carried our standards to 
his head-quarters, and I have given him the title of parent, so well de- 
served by the service which he has done us, and by his high position, 
you, my soldiers, will salute as the authors of your freedom the men 
whose right hands and swords lately saved you. So this day will give 
us, if nothing else, yet at least the credit of having grateful hearts." 



48 College Latin Course in English. 

The signal was given, and proclamation made to collect the camp 
equipage. Then they started and marched in regular array to the dic- 
tator's camp, much to his wonder and that of those who stood round 
him. When the standards were set up before the hustings, the master of 
the horse stepped forward and called Fabius by the name of " father," 
while the whole array saluted as " authors of their freedom " the soldiers 
as they stood grouped around their commander. " Dictator," he said, 
" I have put thee on a level with my parents by this name, and it is all 
that speech can do ; but while I owe to them life only, to thee I owe the 
safety of myself and of all these. Therefore I am the first to reject and 
repeal that decree which has been to me a burden rather than an honor, 
and praying that this act may be prospered to thee and me and to these 
thy armies, the preserver and the preserved alike, I put myself again 
under thy command and fortunes, and restore to thee these standards 
and legions. Forgive us, I pray, and allow me to keep my mastership 
of the horse, and each of these his several rank." 

There was a general clasping of hands ; and when the assembly was 
dismissed, the soldiers were kindly and hospitably invited by strangers 
as well as friends. Thus a day which but a few hours before had been 
full of sorrow and almost of unspeakable disaster became a day of mer- 
riment. In Rome, as soon as the news of this incident arrived, followed 
and confirmed by letters, not only from the generals but from many per- 
sons in either army, every one joined in extolling Maximus to the skies. 
Hannibal and the Carthaginians equally admired him. They felt at last 
that it was with Romans and in Italy that they were fighting. For the 
last two years they had so despised both the generals and the soldiers of 
Rome that they could scarcely believe themselves to be fighting 
with that same people of whom they had heard so terrible a report 
from their fathers. Hannibal, too, they say, exclaimed, as he was re- 
turning from the field, " At last the cloud which has been dwelling so 
long upon the hills, has burst upon us in storm and rain." 

Our readers will, by this time, be interested in knowing 
from what source we draw our excellent English translation 
of Livy. We use the version — a version partial as yet 
• — made in partnership by Messrs. Church and Brodribb, 
respectively of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, in En- 
gland. This is a version worthy to be compared for work- 
manship with the best English transcripts in existence from 
the ancient classics, Latin or Greek. The same accom- 



Livy. 49 

plished translators have given us Tacitus also in a style 
equally admirable. 

The six months' dictatorship of Fabius is now nearing its 
close. The saviour of his country hands over his army to the 
consuls, who pursue the policy of the dictator for the rest of 
that campaign. 

It is a characteristic Roman trait — and Livy relates it with 
characteristic spirit and pride — that out of forty massive bowls 
of gold sent Rome by Naples to succor her need, with accom- 
panying dutiful words of good liegeship as from a steadfast 
ally, Rome magnificently accepted — the lightest one only, 
with thanks. King Hi'e-ro, too, of Syracuse, came forward 
with tribute of help. Hiero must be deemed to have been 
more fortunate than the Neapolitans : Rome took what he 
offered. 

Consuls Paulus and Varro were yoked together like Fabius 
and Rufus. Repetition of the folly thus committed will be 
followed by repetition of the punishment to Rome. Cannae 
is now close at hand. The two consuls bicker, but Varro 
the rash has support instead of Paulus the prudent. Now 
for a good stretch of Livy again : 

The judgment of the majority prevailed, and the army moved out to 
make Cannae, for so destiny would have it, famous forever for a great 
Roman defeat. Hannibal had pitched his camp near that village, so as 
not to face the wind called Vul-tur'nus, which, blowing across plains 
parched with drought, carries with it clouds of dust. The arrangement 
was most convenient for the camp, and was afterward found to be of 
similar advantage when they marshaled their troops for battle. Their 
own faces were turned away and the wind did but blow on their backs, 
while the enemy with whom they were to fight was blinded by volumes 
of dust. 

The consuls, after duly reconnoitering the roads, followed the Car- 
thaginians till they reached Cannae, where they had the enemy in sight. 
They then intrenched and fortified two camps, separating their forces 
by about the same distance as before at Ger-e-o / ni-um. The river 
Au'fi-dus, which flowed near both camps, furnished water to both 
armies, the soldiers approaching as they most conveniently could, not, 
3 



50 College Latin Course in English. 



however, without some skirmishing. From the smaller camp, which 
had been pitched on the farther side of the Aufidus, the Romans pro- 
cured water with less difficulty, as the opposite bank was not held by 
any hostile force. Hannibal saw his hope accomplished, that the con- 
suls would offer battle on ground made for the action of cavalry, in which 
arm he was invincible. He drew up his men, and sought to provoke his 
foe by throwing forward his Numidian troopers. Then the Roman camp 
was once more disturbed by mutiny among the troops and disagreement 
between the consuls. Paulus taunted Varro with the l'ashness of 
Sempronius and Flaminius ; Varro reproached Paulus with copying 
Fabius, an example attractive to timid and indolent commanders, and 
called both gods and men to witness that it was no fault of his if Han- 
nibal had now a prescriptive possession of Italy. "I," said he, "have 
my hands tied and held fast by my colleague. My soldiers, furious and 
eager to fight, are stripped of their swords and arms." Paulus declared 
that if any disaster befell the legions recklessly thrown and betrayed 
into battle without deliberation or forethought, he would share all their 
fortunes, while holding himself free from all blame. " Let Varro look 
to it that they whose tongues were so ready and so bold, had hands 
equally vigorous in the day of battle." 

While they thus wasted the time in disputing rather than in deliberat- 
ing, Hannibal, who had kept his lines drawn up till late. in the clay, 
called back the rest of his troops into his camp, but sent forward tlie 
Numidian cavalry across the river to attack the water-parties from the 
smaller of the two Roman camps. Coming on with shouting and uproar 
they sent the undisciplined crowd flying before they had even reached 
the bank, and rode on till they came on an outpost stationed before the 
rampart and close to the very camp-gates. So scandalous did it seem 
that a Roman camp should be alarmed by some irregular auxiliaries 
that the only circumstance which hindered the Romans from imme- 
diately crossing the river and forming their line of battle was, that the 
supreme command that clay rested with Paulus. But the next day 
Varro, without consulting his colleague, gave the signal to engage, and 
drawing up his forces led them across the river. Paulus followed him ; 
he could withhold his sanction from the movement, but not his support. 
The river crossed, they joined to their own the forces retained by them 
in the smaller camp, and then formed their lines. On the right wing 
(the one nearer to the river) they posted the Roman cavalry and next the 
infantry. On the extreme flank of the left wing were the allied cavalry, 
next the allied infantry, side by side with the Roman legions in the 
center. Slingers and other light-armed auxiliaries made up the first 



Livy. 51 

line. Paulus commanded the left wing ; Varro the right ; Ge-min'i-us 
Ser-vil'i-us had charge of the center. 

At dawn Hannibal, sending in advance his slingers and light-armed 
troops, crossed the river, assigning each division its position as it crossed. 
His Gallic and Spanish cavalry he posted near the river bank on the left 
wing, facing the Roman horse ; the right wing was assigned to the Nu- 
midian cavalry ; the center showed a strong force of infantry, having 
on either side the African troops, with the Gauls and Spaniards between 
them. These Africans might have been taken for a Roman force ; so 
largely were they equipped with weapons taken at Trebia, and yet more 
at Trasumennus. The Gauls and Spaniards had shields of very nearly 
the same shape, but their swords were widely different in size and form, 
the Gauls having them very long and pointless, while the Spaniards, who 
were accustomed to assail the enemy with thrusts rather than with 
blows, had them short, handy, and pointed. These nations had a spe- 
cially terrible appearance, so gigantic was their stature and so strange 
their look. The Gauls were naked above the navel ; the Spaniards wore 
tunics of linen bordered with purple, of a whiteness marvelously daz- 
zling. The total number of the infantry who were that day ranged in 
line was forty thousand, that of the cavalry ten thousand. Hasdrubal 
commanded the left wing ; Maharbal the right ; Hannibal himself, with 
his brother Mago, was in the center. The sun — whether the troops were 
purposely so placed, or whether it was by chance — fell very conveniently 
sideways on both armies, the Romans facing the south, the Carthagin- 
ians the north. The wind (called Vulturnus by the natives of those 
parts) blew straight against the Romans and whirled clouds of dust into 
their faces till they could see nothing. 

With a loud shout the auxiliaries charged, the light troops thus begin- 
ning the battle. Next the Gallic and Spanish horse of the left wing en- 
countered the right wing of the Romans. The fight was not at all like a 
cavalry engagement ; they had to meet face to face ; there was no room 
for maneuvering, shut in as they were by the river on one side and the 
lines of infantry on the other. Both sides pushed straightforward till, 
with their horses brought to a stand and crowded together in a mass, 
each man seized his antagonist and strove to drag him from his seat. 
The struggle now became mainly a struggle of infantry ; but the conflict 
was rather fierce than protracted. The Roman cavahy were defeated 
and put to flight. Just before the encounter of the cavalry came to an 
end, the fight between the infantry began. The two sides were well 
matched in strength and courage, as long as the Gauls and Spaniards 
kept their ranks unbroken ; at last the Romans, after long and repeated 



52 College Latin Course in English. 

efforts, sloped their front and broke, by their deep formation, the enemy's 
column, which, advanced as it was from the rest of the line, was shallow 
and therefore weak. Pursuing the broken and rapidly retreating foe, 
they made their way without a halt through the rout of panic-stricken 
fugitives till they reached, first, the center of the line, and then, meeting 
with no check, the reserves of the African troops. These had been sta- 
tioned on the wings which had been somewhat retired, while the center, 
where the Gauls and Spaniards had been posted, was proportionately 
advanced. As that column fell back, the line became level ; when they 
pushed their retreat, they made a hollow in the center. The Africnns 
now overlapped on either side, and as the Romans rushed heedlessly 
into the intervening space, they first outflanked them and then, extend- 
ing their own formation, actually hemmed in their rear. Upon this 
the Romans, who had fought one battle to no purpose, quitted the Gauls 
and Spaniards, whose rear they had been slaughtering, and. began a new 
conflict with the Africans, a conflict unfair, not only because they were 
shut in with foes all round them, but because they were wearied, while 
the enemy was fresh and vigorous. 

On the left wing of the Romans the cavalry of the allies had been 
posted against the Numidians. Here, too, battle had been joined, though 
with little spirit for a time, the first movement being a Carthaginian 
stratagem. Nearly five hundred Numidians who, besides their usual ar- 
mor and missiles had swords hidden under their cuirasses, rode out from 
their own line with their shields slung behind their backs as though 
they had been deserters, leaped in haste from their horses and threw 
their shields and javelins at the feet of the Romans. They were re- 
ceived into the center of the line, taken to the extreme rear, and bidden 
to keep their place behind. While the battle spread from place to place 
they remained motionless ; but as soon as all eyes and thoughts 
were intent on the conflict, they seized the shields which lay scattered 
every-where among the piles of dead, and fell on the Roman line from 
the rear. They wounded the backs and legs of the men, and while they 
made a great slaughter, spread far greater panic and confusion. While 
there was terror and flight on the right, and in the center an obstinate 
resistance, though with little hope, Hasdrubal, who was in command in 
this quarter, withdrew the Numidians from the center, seeing that they 
fought with but little spirit, and having sent them in all directions to 
pursue the enemy, re-enforced with the Spanish and Gallic cavalry the 
African troops, wearied as they now were with slaughter rather than 
with fighting. 

Paulus was on the other side of the field. He had been seriously 



Livy. 53 

wounded at the very beginning of the battle by a bullet from a sling, 
but yet he repeatedly encountered Hannibal with a compact body of 
troops, and at several points restored the fortune of the day. He was 
protected by the Roman cavalry, who at last sent away their horses when 
the consul became too weak to manage his charger. Some one told 
Hannibal that the consul had ordered the cavalry to dismount. " He 
might better hand them over to me bound hand and foot," said he. 
The horsemen fought on foot as men were likely to fight, when, the vic- 
tory of the enemy being beyond all doubt, the vanquished preferred 
dying where they stood to flight, and the victors, furious with those who 
delayed their triumph, slaughtered the foes whom they could not move. 
Move them, however, they did — that is, a few survivors, exhausted with 
wounds and fatigue. All were then scattered, and such as were able sought 
to recover their horses and fly. Cn. [Cne'i-us] Len'tu-lus, as he galloped 
by, saw the consul sitting on a stone and coverecbwith blood. " Lucius 
^Emilius," he cried, "the one man whom heaven must regard as guiltless 
of this day's calamity, take this horse while you have some strength left, 
and I am here to be with you, to lift you to the saddle, and to defend 
you. Do not make this defeat yet sadder by a consul's death. 
There is weeping and sorrow enough without this." The consul re- 
plied, "'Tis a brave thought of thine, Cn. Cornelius; but waste not 
the few moments you have for escaping from the enemy in fruitless pity. 
My public message to the senators is that they must fortify Rome and 
make its garrison as strong as may be before the victorious enemy ar- 
rives. My private message to Quintus Fabius is that Lucius iEmilius 
remembered his teaching in life and death. As for me, let me breathe 
my last among my slaughtered soldiers. I would not again leave my 
consulship to answer for my life, nor would I stand up to accuse my col- 
league, and by accusing another protect my own innocence." 

While they thus talked together, they were overtaken, first by a crowd 
of Roman fugitives and then by the enemy. These last buried the consul 
under a shower of javelins, not knowing who he was. Lentulus gal- 
loped off in the confusion. The Romans now fled wildly in every direc- 
tion. Seven thousand men escaped into the smaller, ten thousand into 
the larger camp, ten thousand more into the village of Cannae itself. 
These last were immediately surrounded by Car'tha-lo and the cavalry, 
for no fortification protected the place. The other consul, who, whether 
by chance or of set purpose, had not joined any large body of fugitives, 
fled with about five hundred horsemen to Ve-nu'si-a. Forty-five thou- 
sand five hundred infantry, two thousand seven hundred cavalry, and 
almost as many more citizens and allies are said to have fallen. Among 



54 College Lati?i Course in English. 

these were the quaestors of both consuls, Lucius Atilius and Furius 
Bi-bac'u-lus, twenty-nine tribunes of the soldiers, not a few ex-consuls, 
ex-praetors, and ex-aediles (among them Cn. Servilius and Marcus Mi- 
nucius, who the year before had been the master of the horse, and consul 
some years before that), eighty who were either actual senators or had filled 
such offices as made them eligible for the Senate, and who had volun- 
teered to serve in the legions. In this battle three thousand infantry 
and one thousand five hundred cavalry are said to have been taken 
prisoners. 

Such was the battle of Cannae, as famous as the disaster at the Allia, 
and though less serious in its consequences, thanks to the inaction of 
the enemy, yet in loss of men still more ruinous and disgraceful. The 
flight at the Allia lost the city but saved the army ; at Cannae the con- 
sul who fled was followed by barely fifty men ; with the consul who 
perished, perished nearly the whole army. 

Livy perhaps was mistaken, but, according to Livy, Han- 
nibal did not quite prove a match to the greatness of his own 
triumph — the excess of his victory defeated him. Livy thus 
relates what one can only guess how he knew : 

Round the victorious Hannibal crowded his officers with congratula- 
tions and entreaties that now that this mighty war was finished he 
should take what remained of that day and the following night for rest, 
and g ; ve the same to his wearied soldiers. Maharbal, the general of his 
cavalry, thought that there should be no pause. " Nay," he cried, "that 
you may know what has been achieved by this victory, you shall 
hold a conqueror's feast within five days in the Capitol. Pursue them; 
I will go before you with my cavalry, and they shall know that you are 
come before they know that you are coming." Hannibal felt that his 
success w r as too great for him to be able to realize it at the moment. 
" He commended," he said, " Maharbal's zeal, but he must take time to 
deliberate." Maharbal replied, " Well, the gods do not give all gifts to 
one man. Hannibal, you know how to conquer ; not how to use a 
conquest." That day's delay is believed to have saved Rome and its 
empire. 

Scipio, destined to be Scipio Af-ri-ca'nus, now makes a 
grand theatric entrance upon the scene — amid the general 
dismay the one figure at Rome that rose greater than the 
greatness of the ruin around him. Always equal to his most 



Livy. 55 

Roman occasion, Livy thus shows " Scipio, the highth of 
Rome," striding out into the blaze of history, like a triumph- 
ant tragedian saluting his audience from behind the foot- 
lights upon the boards where he reigns : 

The supreme command was unanimously assigned to Scipio, who was 
a very young man, and to Claudius. They were holding council with a 
few friends about the state of affairs, when Publius Furius Philus, whose 
father was an ex-consul, said that it was idle for them to cling to ut- 
terly ruined hopes. The State, he declared, was given over for lost. Cer- 
tain young nobles with Lu'ci-us Cae-cil'i-us Me-tel'lus at their head, 
were thinking of flying beyond sea and deserting their country for the 
service of some foreign king. In face of a peril, terrible in itself, 
and coming with fresh force after so many disasters, all present stood 
motionless in amazement and stupefaction. They proposed that a 
council should be called to consider the matter, but the young Scipio, 
Rome's predestined champion in this war, declared that it was no time 
for a council. . " We must dare and act," he said, " not deliberate, in 
such awful calamity. Let all who desire the salvation of their country, 
come armed with me. No camp is more truly a camp of the enemy than 
that in which men have such thoughts." He immediately started with a 
few followers for the house of Metellus ; there he found a gathering of the 
youths of whom he had heard. Drawing his sword over the heads of the 
conspirators, "It is my fixed resolve," he cried, "as I will not myself 
desert the commonwealth of Rome, so not to suffer any other Roman 
citizen to desert it ; if I knowingly fail therein, almighty and merciful 
Jupiter, smite me, my house, and foi'tunes with utter destruction. I in- 
sist that you, Lucius Cascilius, and all others present, take this oath 
after me. Whoever takes it not may be sure this sword is drawn against 
him." They were as frightened as if they saw the victorious Hannibal 
before them, and to a man they swore and delivered themselves to the 
custody of Scipio. 

Was not this Scipio a born master of men ? Or, if he was 
not really such, did not Livy nobly imagine him such ? 

Some small remnant of the Roman force escaped from the 
destruction at Cannae. But (Livy again now, in description 
of the state of things existing in the capital ) : 

At Rome report said that no such mere remnant of citizens and allies 
survived, but that the army ivith the two consuls had been utterly de- 



56 College Latin Course in English, 

stroyed, and that the whole force had ceased to exist. Never before, 
with Rome itself still safe, had there been such panic and confusion 
within our walls. I shall decline the task of attempting a lengthened 
description which could not but be far inferior to the truth. The year 
before a consul with his army had perished at Trasumennus ; it was 
not wound after wound, but multiplied disasters that were announced. 
Two consuls and the armies of two consuls had perished. Rome had 
now no camp, no general, no soldiers. Hannibal was master of Apulia, 
of Samnium, of nearly the whole of Italy. Certainly there was not a 
nation in the world which would not have been overwhelmed by such a 
weight of calamity. Compare, for instance, the blow which the Cartha- 
ginians received in the sea-fight at the ^-ga'tes Islands, a blow which 
made them evacuate Sicily and Sardinia and allow themselves to be 
burdened with indemnity and tribute ; compare again the defeat in 
Africa, by which Hannibal himself was subsequently crushed. In no 
respect are they comparable with Cannae, except because they were 
borne with less courage. 

How Livy rejoices to pluck a garland of glory for Rome 
off the very acme and summit of her utmost disaster ! And 
unquestionable fact abundantly justifies the historian's au- 
dacity. Rome was truly a wonderful nation — the very in- 
carnation of virtue, as she conceived virtue, and as virtue, 
under the tuition of her conquering power, came, in pagan 
antiquity, to be universally conceived. The sound itself, of 
her name, is a spell to call up the idea of such character. 

For all this, however, there was a dreadful panic at Rome. 
The Romans did not doubt that, of course, Hannibal would 
immediately march upon the city. The forum was filled 
with people dinning each other's ears with dismal lamenta- 
tion. Under the counsel and authority of Fabius, order was 
restored ; and now came unlooked for news from consul Caius 
Terentius. Ten thousand demoralized Roman soldiers had 
survived the calamity at Cannae ; Hannibal remained inactive 
in quarters, " trafficking about the ransom of the prisoners 
and the other booty in any thing but the spirit of a conqueror, 
in any thing but the fashion of a great general." The truth 
is, Hannibal was yet but a youth. Perhaps it may justly be 



Livy. 57 

suspected that to him, as to Alexander the Great, the su- 
preme good fortune of his life arrived too soon. 

Still, the conduct which Livy reports of Hannibal consists 
well with the supposition that, notwithstanding his astonish- 
ing success, the great Carthaginian continued to feel some 
awe of the foe he had conquered. Perhaps, also, there were 
reasons that can only be guessed at, honorable to the genius 
and character of Hannibal, why he did not follow up his 
apparently overwhelming advantage, with instant advance on 
panic-stricken Rome. Mommsen does not hesitate to say 
concerning Hannibal, " He knew Rome better than the 
simpletons, who in ancient [Livy himself then, perhaps ?] and 
modern times have fancied that he might have terminated 
the struggle by a march on the enemy's capital." Mommsen 
is a good hero-worshiper, and Hannibal is one of his favor- 
ite heroes. For the years, following Cannae, of indecisive 
warlike operations conducted by Hannibal in Italy, the 
German historian is so far from blaming his hero, that he 
finds in these transactions fresh matter of praise. "We 
hardly," he says, " recognize in the obstinate defensive sys- 
tem which he now began the same general who had carried 
on the offensive with almost unequaled impetuosity and 
boldness ; it is marvelous, in a psychological as well as in a 
military point of view, that the same man should have ac- 
complished the two tasks prescribed to him — tasks so diamet- 
rically opposite in their character — with equal completeness." 

The slowly losing game of obstinate defense on Hannibal's 
part, however masterly may have been his management of it, 
we have no room here to display. We go back for a moment 
to the immediate sequel of Cannae. What Hannibal first 
did, and how meantime Rome, on her part, bore herself 
toward her apparently omnipotent foe, Livy himself shall 
tell in his sympathetically spirited way : 

Hannibal, after his great success at Cannae, was bent on schemes 
which suited a conqueror rather than one who had yet a war to wage. 
3* 



58 College Latin Course i?i English. 

The prisoners were brought out and classified ; the allies, as he had 
done before at Trebia and Lake Trasumennus, he dismissed with some 
kind words. The Romans too he addressed, as he had never done be- 
fore, in quite gentle terms ; he had no deadly feud, he said, with Rome ; 
he was fighting for freedom and empire. His fathers had yielded to the 
valor of Rome ; he was now doing his utmost that Rome should yield in 
turn to his own valor and good fortune. He would therefore give the 
prisoners an opportunity of ransoming themselves ; the sum would be five 
hundred '* chariot " pieces for each horseman, three hundred for each foot 
soldier, one hundred for each slave. The price put on the horsemen was 
somewhat larger than that which had been agreed upon when they surren- 
dered, but they joyfully accepted any kind of terms which permitted them 
to treat. It was resolved that they should themselves elect ten deputies, 
who were to go to the Senate at Rome. No security was taken for 
their good faith, except an oath that they would return. One Carthalo, 
a noble of Carthage, was sent with them, bearing conditions of peace, 
if there should chance to be any inclination in that direction. After 
they had left the camp, one of their number, a man who had none of a 
Roman's temper, pretending that he had forgotten something, returned 
to the camp, so as to acquit himself of his oath, and before night over- 
took his companions. As soon as it was announced that they were on 
their way to Rome, a lictor was sent to meet Carthalo with a message 
that he was to quit Roman territory before nightfall. 

The delegates of the Roman prisoners held in Carthagin- 
ian hands, were permitted to plead their cause themselves 
before the senate. Livy contrives an admirable speech for 
them — which we must omit. The effect was powerful — it was 
likely to prove overwhelming — in favor of a ransoming of the 
prisoners. At the critical moment, however, an old-fashioned 
Roman voice was found to utter itself against the proposal; 
and the prisoners at last were left to their fate. Such was 
the stern temper of Roman virtue. Roman soldiers were 
emphatically taught that their only safety in war was to con- 
quer. No terms could be thought of, on which defeated 
troops were wanted at Rome. One incident of the occasion 
is too striking to be withheld : 

One of them [the captive Romans] went to his home, as having 
quitted himself of his oath by the pretense of his return to the camp. 






Livy. 59 

When this became known and reached the ears of the Senate, they 
unanimously voted that the man should be seized and taken under an 
escort furnished by the State to Hannibal. 

Livy, after telling his story, as above, about the prisoners, 
conscientiously adds that there were conflicting reports rel- 
ative to the true state of the facts. Having mentioned some 
of these, he composedly dismisses the point with the remark, 
"We may wonder why our authorities differ so much from 
each other, more easily than determine what is true." 

The allies of Rome began now to forsake her. Livy gives 
a formidable list of these losses to Rome. He then loftily 
adds : 

Yet all these disasters and defections never made the Romans so 
much as mention peace, either before the consul returned to Rome, or 
after his return had renewed the remembrance of the terrible loss sus- 
tained. On this latter occasion, indeed, such was the high spirit of the 
country, that when the consul returned after this great disaster of which 
he had himself been the chief cause, all classes went in crowds to meet 
him, and he was publicly thanked because " he had not despaired of the 
commonwealth." 

Livy contrasts, with all confidence certainly, and probably 
with truth, what, in a different case, would have befallen the 
consul : 

Had he been a Carthaginian general, they knew that there was no 
torture which he would not have had to suffer. 

We have now got to the end of the second book of Livy's 
third decade. But we shall not fairly have presented the 
state of things created at Rome by the disaster of Cannae, 
without mention of the fact that there were fearful omens 
observed by the Romans and fearful expiations accomplished 
to the gods. Livy seems to shudder rhetorically as he gives 
his account of the latter : 

In obedience to the books of Fate, some unusual sacrifices were of- 
fered. Among them were a man and a woman of Gaul, and a man and 
a woman of Greece, who were buried alive in the Ox-market in a stone- 



60 College Latin Course in English. 

vaulted chamber, not then for the first time polluted by what Roman 
feeling utterly abhorred, human sacrifice. 

The rest of the story of Hannibal stretches out too long 
for us to give it here in any detail. He has now reached 
the height of his prosperity. It remains for him henceforth 
to the end of his protracted career to display his greatness 
under adversity. He was tried, in every vicissitude of for- 
tune, by every experiment of situation, and he was seldom, 
perhaps never, found wanting. He was more than simply a 
great general. He was a truly great man. 

From Italy the war at length was, by Scipio's motion and 
under his conduct, transferred into Africa. Carthage, who 
would not support her illustrious son abroad, now summoned 
that son to her own support at home. Hannibal loyally came 
at the call of his country and joined, with his brilliant antago- 
nist, Scipio, the great battle of Za'ma. Scipio conquered, and 
Carthage was at the mercy of Rome. Hannibal, without an 
army, and a fugitive from land to land, was still formidable 
to his ancient foe. But the stars in their courses fought 
against the indomitable Carthaginian. What — after having 
first sought in vain to inspire the stolid mercantile oligarchy 
of Carthage with his own spirit of patriotic hostility to Rome, 
and then in vain to make An-ti'o-chus of Asia let him demon- 
strate how Rome might yet be conquered — what, we say, 
after all this, Hannibal finally attempted and suffered, we 
shall allow Mommsen, the modern German historian, to display 
in brief to our readers. Mommsen, it will be observed — after 
a not infrequent manner of his — suggests, and brilliantly 
suggests, more than he narrates. He says : 

" There nowhere existed a state that the Romans would 
have deemed it worth while to fear. But there still lived a 
man to whom Rome accorded this rare honor — the homeless 
Carthaginian, who had raised in arms against Rome first all 
the West and then all the East, and whose schemes had been 
frustrated solely perhaps by infamous aristocratic policy in 



Livy. 6 1 

the one case, and by stupid court policy in the other. An- 
tiochus had been obliged to bind himself in the treaty of 
peace to deliver up Hannibal ; but the latter had escaped, 
first to Crete, then to Bithynia, and now lived at the court 
of Pru'si-as, king of Bithynia, employed in aiding the latter in 
his wars with Eumenes, and victorious as ever by sea and by 
land. It is affirmed that he was desirous of stirring up Pru- 
sias also to make war on Rome : a folly, which, as it is told, 
sounds very far from credible. It is more certain that, while 
the Roman senate deemed it beneath its dignity to have the 
old man hunted out in his last asylum — for the tradition 
which inculpates the senate appears to deserve no credit — 
Flam-i-ni'nus, whose restless vanity sought after new oppor- 
tunities for great achievements, undertook on his own part 
to deliver Rome from Hannibal as he had delivered the 
Greeks from their chains, and, if not to wield — which was not 
diplomatic — at any rate to whet and to point, the dagger 
against the greatest man of his time. Prusias, the most pitiful 
among the pitiful princes of Asia, was delighted to grant the 
little favor which the Roman envoy in ambiguous terms re- 
quested ; and when Hannibal saw his house beset by assassins, 
he took poison. He had long been prepared to do so, adds a 
Roman, for he knew the Romans and the faith of kings. The 
year of his death is uncertain ; probably he died in the latter 
half of the year 571 [U. C, *. e., 183 B. C], at the age of sixty- 
seven. When he was born, Rome was contending with doubt- 
ful success for the possession of Sicily ; he had lived long 
enough to see the West wholly subdued, and to fight his own 
last battle with the Romans against the vessels of his native 
city which had itself become Roman ; and he was constrained 
at last to remain a mere spectator while Rome overpowered 
the East as the tempest overpowers the ship that has no one at 
the helm, and to feel that he alone was the pilot that could 
have weathered the storm. There was left to him no further 
hope to be disappointed, when he died; but he had honestly, 



62 College Latin Course in English. 

through fifty years of struggle, kept the oath which he had 
sworn when a boy." 

(Readers need to note that Mommsen reckons his dates 
from the founding of Rome.) 

In offset to the foregoing epically conceived and epically 
expressed farewell from Mommsen to Hannibal, read the im- 
mediately connected dismissal, by the same writer, of Scipio, 
the Carthaginian's more fortunate rival: 

" About the same time, probably in the same year, died 
also the man whom the Romans were wont to call his con- 
queror, Publius Scipio. On him fortune had lavished all 
the successes which she denied to his antagonist — successes 
which did belong to him, and. successes which did not. He 
had added to the empire Spain, Africa, and Asia; and Rome, 
which he had found merely the first community of Italy, was 
at his death mistress of the civilized world. He himself had 
so many titles of victory, that some of them were made over 
to his brother and his cousin. And yet he too spent his last 
years in bitter vexation, and died when little more than fifty 
years of age in voluntary banishment, leaving orders to his 
relatives not to bury his remains in the city for which he had 
lived and in which his ancestors reposed. It is not exactly 
known what drove him from the city. The charges of cor- 
ruption and embezzlement, which were directed against him 
and still more against his brother Lucius, were beyond doubt 
empty calumnies, which do not satisfactorily account for such 
irritation of feeling ; although it was characteristic of the 
man, that instead of simply vindicating himself by means of 
his account-books, he tore them in pieces in presence of the 
people and of his accusers, and summoned the Romans to 
accompany him to the temple of Jupiter and to celebrate the 
anniversary of his victory at Zama. The people left the ac- 
cusers on the spot, and followed Scipio to the Capitol; but 
this was the last glorious day of that illustrious man. His 
proud spirit, his belief that he was different from, and better 






Livy 63 

than, other men, his very decided family policy, which in the 
person of his brother Lucius especially brought forward a 
clumsy man of straw as a hero, gave offense to many, and not 
without reason. While genuine pride protects the heart, arro- 
gance lays it open to every blow and every sarcasm, and cor- 
rodes even an originally noble-minded spirit. It is throughout, 
moreover, the distinguishing characteristic of such natures 
as that of Scipio — strange mixtures of genuine gold and glit- 
tering tinsel — that they need the good fortune and the 
brilliance of youth in order to exercise their charm, and, 
when this charm begins to fade, it is the charmer himself 
that is most painfully conscious of the change." 

Mommsen's estimate of Scipio differs, in being more mod- 
erate, from the admiring one expressed by Milton — " Scipio 
the highth of Rome." 

That noblest of Roman matrons, the great Cornelia, mother 
of the Gracchi, was daughter to this Scipio. Her fame, 
single almost like the sun in heaven, among the historic 
women of Rome, reflects a doubled luster backward upon the 
fame of the father. 

We hope many of our readers will be tempted to explore 
the full text of Livy translated, to find out for themselves 
what store contained in those pages is left behind, by us un- 
exhausted, of picturesque and romantic recital. Assuredly, 
Livy, in his story of Rome, supplied to his countrymen an 
unsurpassed text-book of lofty example, of nobly inspiring 
tradition. 



64 College Latin Course in English. 



II. 
TACITUS. 

A very different writer of history from Livy, is Tacitus. 
Tacitus, however, though different, is not less interesting 
than Livy. He has an equally entertaining story to tell, and 
he tells his story every whit as admirably. It is not romance, 
it is history, with Tacitus. The color is not rose any longer. 
It is stern, often livid, likeness to life. If Livy is Claude 
Lorraine, Tacitus is Salvator Rosa: if Livy is Titian, Taci- 
tus is Rembrandt. You read Livy, and you are inspired. 
You read Tacitus, and you are oppressed. But the oppres- 
sion somehow at length leaves you, by reaction, braced; 
while the inspiration somehow at length leaves you, as if 
through too much elixir, languid. For the inspiration is the 
effect of romance, and the oppression is the effect of reality. 
Reality is generally much more somber than romance, and 
Tacitus is far more somber than Livy. 

When Livy wrote, the Roman Empire was young. It had 
the halo of uncertain hope about it. Augustus had brought 
back peace to a distracted commonwealth, and Livy wrote 
in the sunrise of a new era that perhaps would be glorious. 
When Tacitus wrote, the aureole was gone} for the empire 
was now a hundred years old. There had been Tiberius, 
Caligula, Claudius, Nero. No wonder if now, for the writing 
of Roman history, grim realism took the place of blithe 
romance. 

Of Tacitus himself we know very little. We do not 
know where he was born. We do not know when he was 
born. He was probably born about the year 50 of the Chris- 
tian era. A town in Umbria is named as his birthplace. 
Pliny was a younger friend, a loyal and affectionate admirer, 
of the historian. From Pliny we derive what knowledge we 



Tacitus. 65 



possess concerning his elder and more illustrious compeer ; 
except, indeed, that Tacitus himself makes us know that he 
held public office in a constantly ascending scale under Ves- 
pasian, under Titus, and under Uomitian. Later, Tacitus 
was consul; for there was still a titular consulship, even un- 
der the empire. He was also senator; for there was still a 
titular senate. With the accession of Trajan, the political 
activity of Tacitus seems to have terminated. That great 
prince was too strong for individual subjects under his sway 
to enjoy much freedom of political action. But he was also 
too strong to feel any necessity of greatly abridging his sub- 
jects' freedom of speech. Romans might say what pleased 
themselves, on the simple condition that they would do what 
pleased their emperor. Tacitus accordingly turned now de- 
cisively from politics to literature; and well it is for us that 
he did so. Near two centuries from his time will pass, and 
there -will then ascend the throne of the world an emperor 
who, bearing the same name, the name of Tacitus, will fondly 
trace his lineage back to this prince in literature, so to derive 
for himself a prouder than imperial ancestry. Caius Cor- 
nelius Tacitus was the full name of the historian. The Cor- 
nelian family was one of the very highest in Rome. But 
whether the possession by Tacitus of their gentile name im- 
plied his connection with that family by blood is, perhaps, 
doubtful. 

Tacitus had probably, before Trajan's accession, already 
produced his Dialogue on Oratory. Shortly after Trajan's 
accession, he published his life of Agricola, his own father- 
in-law. His tract on Germany, we may suppose, soon fol- 
lowed. The principal historical works of Tacitus are two ; 
the History, or Histories, distinctively so called, and the 
Annals. The Annals, though subsequent in composition, 
treat of an earlier period than the History. The History 
Tacitus seems never to have completed according to his 
original design for that work. He alludes to projects in his- 



66 College Latiti Course i?i English. 

tory entertained by him, of which, if he ever fulfilled them, 
we have utterly lost the fulfillment. We do not know, we 
have not even the means of guessing, what and how much we 
have lost of literature that flowed from the pen of Tacitus. 
He enjoyed great renown in his own day, but sank soon after 
his death into unaccountable neglect. We thus lack the 
notice of him, and the extracts from him, in later ancient 
literature, that might otherwise have saved to us some pre- 
cious fragments from his unknown perished works. But 
neglect of such a writer as Tacitus could not continue. He 
had an immortality in him that no length of dormancy could 
extinguish. He stands forth to-day an historian confessedly 
without superior in the republic of letters. If he does not 
flash like Livy, he burns as steady and as strong as Thu- 
cydides. No more weighty, no more serious, no more 
penetrating, no sounder, truer, manlier mind than Tacitus, 
perhaps, ever wrote history. 

We shall chiefly draw from the "Annals," to give our 
readers their taste of the quality of Tacitus. First, however, 
for the double sake of a certain striking parallel suggested, 
and of a certain particular description exceptionally inter- 
esting to all modern heirs of Christianity, we introduce 
two passages from the "History." The first passage consists 
of the majestic sentences in which, at the beginning of the 
work, the historian sets forth the object proposed by him, 
and passes in rapid review the whole course of the history. 
The reader will find it very interesting and suggestive to 
compare the opening of Macaulay's History of England. 
Tacitus : 

I am entering on the history of a period rich in disasters, frightful in 
its wars, torn by civil strife, and even in peace full of horrors. Four 
emperors perished by the sword. There were three civil wars ; there 
were more with foreign enemies ; there were often wars that had both 
characters at once. There was success in the East, and disaster in the 
West. There were disturbances in Illyricum ; Gaul wavered in its alle- 



Tacitus. 67 



giance ; Britain was thoroughly subdued and immediately abandoned ; the 
tribes of the Suevi and the Sarmatse rose in concert against us ; the 
Dacians had the glory of inflicting as well as suffering defeat ; the armies 
of Parthia were all but set in motion by the cheat of a counterfeit Nero. 
Now, too, Italy was prostrated by disasters either entirely novel, or that 
recurred only after a long succession of ages ; cities in Campania's 
richest plains were swallowed up and overwhelmed ; Rome was wasted 
by conflagrations, its oldest temples consumed, and the Capitol itself fired 
by the hands of citizens. Sacred rites were profaned ; there was prof- 
ligacy in the highest ranks ; the sea was crowded with exiles, and its 
rocks polluted with bloody deeds. In the capital there were yet worse 
horrors. Nobility, wealth, the refusal or the acceptance of office, were 
grounds for accusation, and virtue insured destruction. The rewards of 
the informers were no less odious than their crimes; for while some 
seized on consulships and priestly offices, as their share of the spoil, 
others on procuratorships, and posts of more confidential authority, they 
robbed and i-uined in every direction amid universal hatred and terror. 
Slaves were bribed to turn against their masters, and freedmen to betray 
their patrons ; and those who had not an enemy were destroyed by 
friends. 

Yet the age was not so barren in noble qualities, as not also to exhibit 
examples of virtue. Mothers accompanied the flight of their sons : 
wives followed their husbands into exile ; there were brave kinsmen 
and faithful sons-in-law ; there were slaves whose fidelity defied even 
torture; there were illustrious men driven to the last necessity, and 
enduring it with fortitude ; there were closing scenes that equaled the 
famous deaths of antiquity. Besides the manifold vicissitudes of human 
affairs, there were prodigies in heaven and earth, the warning voices of 
the thunder, and other intimations of the future, auspicious or gloomy, 
doubtful or not to be mistaken. Never, surely, did more terrible calami- 
ties of the Roman people, or evidence more conclusive, prove that the 
gods take no thought for our happiness, but only for our punishment. 

I think it proper, however, before I commence my purposed work, to 
pass under review the condition of the capital, the temper of the armies, 
the attitude of the provinces, and the elements of weakness and strength 
which existed throughout the whole empire, that so we may become 
acquainted, not only with the vicissitudes and the issues of events, which 
are often matters of chance, but also with their relations and their causes. 

The clause, " with their relations and their causes," reveals 
a feature of the method of Tacitus in which he differs from 



68 College Latin Course in English. 

Livy. Livy is a romantic, whereas Tacitus is a philosophical, 
historian. History, in the handling of Tacitus, becomes 
philosophy teaching by example. History, in the handling of 
Livy, was largely the imagination delighting by pictures, 
whether pictures of fact or of fancy. The pathetic gravity, 
the sententious density, of the foregoing passage from 
Tacitus, will be better appreciated by the reader who will 
turn back to it, and peruse it again, after having first gone 
through the details which it compresses in that marvelous 
brevity of statement. The preface thus prefixed to the 
History will be found to fit the Annals nearly as well. 

We skip at one bound over the entire space of the History, 
to find our next and last extract from this work, in the book 
with which the whole narrative abruptly closes — closes with- 
out being brought to any completion. 

Titus has encamped before Jerusalem. His mention of 
that city makes Tacitus pause for a lengthened, and with 
him rather unusual, digression. Evidently Jerusalem had 
made noise enough in the world to be a subject of curiosity 
at Rome. Tacitus says : 

As I am about to relate the last days of a famous city, it seems appro* 
priate to throw some light on its origin. 

Our readers will not now expect from this Roman authority 
a wholly accurate account of Jewish matters. A bright 
Sunday-school scholar in America knows more real truth 
about Jewish history, than Tacitus ever troubled himself to 
learn. The slips and stumbles that Tacitus makes in what 
he says about the Jews, may appropriately teach us to be 
wisely doubtful in every case in which a Roman historian 
undertakes to give a full account of remote and foreign 
nations. Severe historical accuracy is rare everywhere and 
always. But that a Roman of the time of Tacitus should be 
severely accurate in statement concerning the Jews, it would 
be especially unreasonable to expect. Be prepared, there- 



Tacitus. 69 



fore, to receive at the outset a smart shock to your pre-estab- 
iished ideas on Jewish history, as Tacitus proceeds : 

Some say that the Jews were fugitives from the island of Crete, who 
settled on the nearest coast of Africa about the time when Saturn was 
driven from his throne by the power of Jupiter. Evidence of this is 
sought in the name. There is a famous mountain in Crete called Ida ; 
the neighboring tribe, the I-dae'i, came to be called Ju-dse'i by a barbarous 
lengthening of the national name. Others assert that in the reign of Isis, 
the overflowing population of Egypt, led by Hi-e-ro-sol'y-mus and Judas, 
discharged itself into the neighboring countries. Many, again, say that 
they were a race of Ethiopian origin, who in the time of king Ce'pheus 
were driven by fear and hatred of their neighbors to seek a new dwell- 
ing-place. Others describe them as an Assyrian horde who, not having 
sufficient territory, took possession of part of Egypt, and founded cities 
of their own in what is called the Hebrew country, lying on the borders 
of Syria. Others, again, assign a very distinguished origin to the Jews, 
alleging that they were the Sol'y-mi, a nation celebrated in the poems of 
Homer, who called the city which they founded Hierosolyma, after their 
own name. 

What say our readers to the "light " which Tacitus deems 
it "appropriate to throw " on the " origin " of the Jews ? It 
will be a stimulating diversion of mind to study the forms 
>nto which the story of the exodus gets perverted by the phil- 
osophical genius of the Roman historian, in what follows : 

Most writers, however, agree in stating that once a disease, which 
horribly disfigured the body, broke out over Egypt ; that king Boc-cho'- 
ris, seeking a remedy, consulted the oracle of Hammon, and was bidden 
to cleanse his realm, and to convey into some foreign land this race 
detested by the gods. The people, who had been collected after dili- 
gent search, finding themselves left in a desert, sat for the most 
part in a stupor of grief, till one of the exiles, Moyses by name, 
warned them not. to look for any relief from God or man, forsaken as 
they were of both, but to trust to themselves, taking for their heaven- 
sent leader that man who should first help them to be quit of their 
present misery. They agreed, and in utter ignorance began to advance 
at random. Nothing, however, distressed them so much as the scarcity 
of water, and they had sunk ready to perish in all directions over the 
plain, when a herd of wild asses were seen to retire from their pasture 



jro College Latin Course in English. 

to a rock shaded by trees. Moyses followed them, and, guided by the 
appearance of a grassy spot, discovered an abundant spring of water. 
This furnished relief. After a continuous journey for six days, on the 
seventh they possessed themelves of a country, from which they expelled 
the inhabitants, and in which they founded a city and a temple. 

Moyses, wishing to secure for the future his authority over the nation, 
gave them a novel form of worship, opposed to all that is practiced by 
other men. Things sacred with us, with them have no sanctity, while 
they allow what with us is forbidden. In their holy place they have con- 
secrated an image of the animal by whose guidance they found deliver- 
ance from their long and thirsty wanderings. They slay the ram, seem- 
ingly in derision of Hammon, and they sacrifice the ox, because the 
Egyptians worship it as Apis. They abstain from swine's flesh, in con- 
sideration of what they suffered when they were infected by the lepix>sy to 
which this animal is liable. By their frequent fasts they still bear wit- 
ness to the long hunger of former days, and the Jewish bread, made 
without leaven, is retained as a memorial of their hurried seizure of corn. 
We are told that the rest of the seventh day was adopted, because this day 
brought with it a termination of their toils; after a while the charm of 
indolence beguiled them into giving up the seventh year also to inaction. 
But others say that it is an observance in honor of Saturn, either from 
the primitive elements of their faith having been transmitted from the 
Idasi, who are said to have shared the flight of that god, and to have 
founded the race, or from the circumstance that of the seven stars which 
lie the destinies of men, Saturn moves in the highest orbit and with 
the mightiest power, and that many of the heavenly bodies complete 
their revolutions and courses in multiples of seven. 

This worship, however introduced, is upheld by its antiquity ; all their 
other customs, which are at once perverse and disgusting, owe their 
strength to their very badness. The most degraded out of other races, 
scorning their national beliefs, brought to them their contributions and 
presents. This augmented the wealth of the Jews, as also did the fact, 
that among themselves they are inflexibly honest and ever ready to show 
compassion, though they regard the rest of mankind with all the hatred 
of enemies. They sit apart at meals, they sleep apart, and though, as &■ 
nation, they are singularly prone to lust, they abstain from intercourse 
with foreign women ; among themselves nothing is unlawful. Circum- 
cision was adopted by them as a mark of difference from other men. 
Those who come over to their religion adopt the practice, and have this 
lesson first instilled into them, to despise all gods, to disown their coun- 
try, and set at naught parents, children, and brethren. Still they pro- 



Tacitus. 71 



vide for the increase of their numbers. It is a crime among them to kill 
any newly-born infant. 

The last foregoing sentence tells volumes, in its eleven 
short words, This Roman notes it as a Jewish peculiarity, 
that the murder of infants was unlawful. What a lurid 
light on Gentile morality is thus, without consciousness on 
the part of the historian, thrown ! Let Tacitus go on : 

They hold that the souls of all who perish in battle or by the hands of 
the executioner are immortal. Hence a passion for propagating their race 
and a contempt for death. They are wont to bury rather than to burn 
their dead, following in this the Egyptian custom ; they bestow the same 
care on the dead, and they hold the same belief about the lower world. 
Quite different is their faith about things divine. The Egyptians worship 
many animals and images of monstrous form ; the Jews have puiely men- 
tal conceptions of Deity, as one in essence. They call those profane who 
make representations of God in human shape out of perishable materials. 
They believe that Being to be supreme and eternal, neither capable of 
representation, nor of decay. They, therefore, do not allow any imag-s 
to stand in their cities, much less in their temples. This flattery is not 
paid to their kings, nor this honor to our emperors. From the fact, 
however, that their priests used to chant to the music of flutes and cym- 
bals, and to wear garlands of ivy, and that a golden vine was found in 
the temple, some have thought that they worshiped Father Liber, the 
conqueror of the East, though their institutions do not by any means 
harmonize with the theory ; for Liber established a festive and cheerful 
worship, while the Jewish religion is tasteless and mean. 

A little Judaean geography follows, in which the river 
Jordan and the Dead Sea occupy great space. This, though 
interesting, we, for economy's sake, omit. Tacitus comes to 
Jerusalem : 

A great part of Jndaea consists of scattered villages. They have also 
towns. Jerusalem is the capital. There stood a temple of immense 
wealth. First came the city with its fortifications, then the royal 
palace, then, within the innermost defenses, the temple itself. Only the 
Jew might approach the gates ; all but priests were forbidden to pass 
the threshold. While the East was under the sway of the Assyrians, 
the Medes, and the Persians, Jews were the most contemptible of the 



72 College Latin Course in English. 

subject tribes. When the Macedonians became supreme, King Anti- 
ochus strove to destroy the national superstition, and to introduce Greek 
civilization, but was prevented by his war with the Parthians from at all 
improving this vilest of nations. . . . 

Cneius Pompeius was the first of our countrymen to subdue the Jews. 
Availing himself of the right of conquest, he entered the temple. Thus 
it became commonly known that the place stood empty with no simili- 
tude of gods within, and that the shrine had nothing to reveal. . . . Un- 
der Tiberius all was quiet. But when the Jews were ordered by Calig- 
ula to set up his statue in the temple, they preferred the alternative of 
war. The death of the emperor put an end to the disturbance. The 
kings were either dead, or reduced to insignificance, when Claudius 
intrusted the province of Judaea to the Roman knights or to his own 
freedmen, one of whom, Antonius Felix, indulging in every kind of 
barbarity and lust, exercised the power of a king in the spirit of a slave. 
He had married Drusilla, the granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, 
and so was the grandson-in-law, as Claudius was the grandson, of 
Antony. 

The mordant expression, in which the character of the 
Felix of scriptural narrative is fixed forever for the contem- 
plation of posterity, will not fail to arrest the attention of the 
reader. What force of fierce invective in that Roman turn, 
"exercised the power of a king in the spirit of a slave"! 
Tacitus once more : 

.... Peace [after the civil wars] having been established in Italy, 
foreign affairs were once more remembered. Our indignation was 
heightened by the circumstance that the Jews alone had not submitted. 
At the same time it was held to be more expedient, in reference to the 
possible results and contingencies of the new reign, that Titus should 
remain with the army. . . . 

It seemed beneath them to await the result of famine. The army de- 
manded the more perilous alternative, some prompted by courage, many 
by sheer ferocity and greed of gain. Titus himself had Rome, with all 
its wealth and pleasures, before his eyes. Jerusalem must fall at once, 
or it would delay his enjoyment of them. 

But the commanding situation of the city had been strengthened by 
enormous works which would have been a thorough defense even for 
level ground. Two hills of great height were fenced in by walls which 
had been skillfully obliqued or bent inwards in such a manner that the 



Tacitus. 



73 



flank of an assailant was exposed to missiles. The rock terminated in a 
precipice; the towers were raised to a height of sixty feet, where the hill 
lent its aid to the fortifications, where the ground fell, to a height of one hun- 
dred and twenty. They had a marvellous appearance, and to a distant spec- 
tator seemed to be of uniform elevation. Within were other walls surround- 
ing the palace, 
and, rising to a 
conspicuous 
height, the tow- 
er Antonia, so 
called by Her- 
od, in honor of 
Marcus Antonius 

The temple resembled a citadel, and 
had its own walls, which were more 
laboriously constructed than the oth- 
ers. Even the colonnades with which 
it was surrounded formed an admi- 
rable outwork. It contained an inex- 
haustible spring; there were subterra- 
nean excavations in the hill, and tanks 
and cisterns for holding rain water. 
The founders of the State had foreseen 
that frequent wars would result from 
the singularity of its customs, and so 
had made eveiy provision against the 
most protracted siege. After the capt- 
ure of their city by Pompey, experi- 
ence and apprehension taught them 
much. Availing themselves of the sor- 
did policy of the Claudian era to pur- 
chase the right of fortification, they 
raised in time of peace such walls as 
were suited for war. Their num- 
bers were increased by a vast rab- 
ble collected from the overthrow of TITUS, 
the other cities. All the most obstinate rebels had escaped into the place, 
and perpetual seditions were the consequence. There were three generals, 
and as many armies. Simon held the outer and larger circuit of walls. 
John, also called Bar-gi-o'ras, occupied the middle city. E-le-a'zar had 
fortified the temple. John and Simon were strong in numbers and equip- 




74 College Latin Course in English. 

ment, Eleazar in position. There were continual skirmishes, surprises, 
and incendiary fires, and a vast quantity of corn was burned. Before 
long John sent some emissaries, who, under pretense of sacrificing, slaugh- 
tered Eleazar and his partisans, and gained possession of the temple. 
The city was thus divided between two factions, till, as the Romans ap- 
proached, war with the foreigner brought about a reconciliation. 

Prodigies had occurred, which this nation, prone to superstition, but 
hating all religious rites, did not deem it lawful to expiate by offering 
and sacrifice. There had been seen hosts joining battle in the skies, the 
fiery gleam of arms, the temple illuminated by a sudden radiance from 
the clouds. The doors of the inner shrine were suddenly thrown open, 
and a voice of more than mortal tone was heard to cry that the gods 
were departing. At the same instant there was a mighty stir as of de- 
parture. Some few put a fearful meaning on these events, but in most 
there was a firm persuasion, that in the ancient records of their priests 
was contained a prediction of how at this very time the East was to 
grow powerful, and rulers, coming from Judaea, were to acquire uni- 
versal empire. These mysterious prophecies had pointed to Vespasian 
and Titus, but the common people, with the usual blindness of ambition, 
had interpreted these mighty destinies of themselves, and could not be 
brought even by disasters to believe the truth. I have heard that the 
total number of the besieged, of every age and both sexes, amounted to 
six hundred thousand. All who were able bore arms, and a number, more 
than proportionate to the population, had the courage to do so. Men 
and women showed equal resolution, and life seemed more terrible than 
death, if they were to be forced to leave their countiy. Such was this 
city and nation ; and Titus Caesar, seeing that the position forbade an 
assault or any of the more rapid operations of war, determined to 
proceed by earth-works and covered approaches. The legions had 
their respective duties assigned to them, and there was a cessation from 
fighting, till all the inventions, used in ancient warfare, or devised by 
modern ingenuity for the reduction of cities, were constructed. 

Here Tacitus, without notice, turns away to bring forward 
in recital certain parallel operations proceeding in a differ- 
ent part of the empire. And Tacitus makes, in what we pos- 
sess of his history, no return to what would have interested 
us so much, namely, the siege and capture of Jerusalem. Our 
readers will discover — in the perfectly composed air with which 
Tacitus explains that the predictions of Scripture, mistakenly, 



Tacitus. 75 



as he assumes, supposed by the Jews to point to the Mes- 
siah, pointed in fact to Vespasian and Titus — a proof, not 
needed, of the supreme egotism natural to the Roman race. 
What different disposition could reasonably be looked for 
in the lords of the world ? But how solemnly sublime a 
light seems to be thrown on the end of the Old Testament 
Jewish age, in those sentences of Tacitus — read them again — 
"There had been seen hosts joining battle in the skies, 
the fiery gleam of arms, the temple illuminated by a sudden 
radiance from the clouds. The doors of the inner shrine 
were suddenly thrown open, and a voice of more than mortal 
tone was heard to cry that the gods were departing. At the 
same instant there was a mighty stir as of departure." 

So much for the " History," properly so called, of Tacitus. 
It begins with the events immediately preceding the acces- 
sion of Galba, 69 A. D. Of the entire work, which should com- 
prise the events of nearly thirty years, we have not quite 
enough to cover the events of two years. We have lost then, 
probably, at least ten times as much as we have, of the His- 
tory of Tacitus — a sad lacuna this, to yawn hopelessly in 
classic literature. 

We said that Tacitus has a story to tell not less entertain- 
ing than the story told by Livy. Tacitus himself, however, 
felt that he wrote at disadvantage, as contrasted with preced- 
ing historians, because his subject was less heroic, less glo- 
rious. He was at heart an aristocrat of the elder times. 
The degeneracy of the senate of his own days, he bewailed, 
as one kindred in spirit with that proud oligarchy of which, 
a hundred years before, Livy had sung in lyric prose his 
"passionate ballad,. gallant and gay." Still Tacitus was, un- 
der the circumstances that he found existing, a good enough 
imperialist. Doubtless he thought the new order that had 
established itself, better than the old order which, because it 
was no longer worthy, had lapsed. You hear, however, the 



7 6 



College Latin Course in English. 



undertone of pathos for the long-gone and irrecoverable past, 
mingled with superb, disdain for the ignoble present, running 
through the whole course of the history of Tacitus. Indig- 
nant pessimism is the key-note everywhere to his writing. 

The "Annals," a different work, to be distinguished from 
the "History," embraced the interval between the years 14 
and 68 of the Christian era. The concluding part, that is, 
the part covering the last three years of the reign of Nero, 
is lost. Parts also in the midst of the work have perished. 
The whole narrative is depressing. It is a melancholy mo- 
notony of misery and crime. But Tacitus writes with such 
art that you are fascinated to read it from beginning to end. 
He holds you with his glittering eye. 

The story of Nero is, perhaps, the part most familiar of all 
to the modern reader. This might 
seem a reason for choosing some 
other part, some part more novel, to 
be presented here. But the evil tale 
of Nero is the most familiar, because 
it is the most interesting. We should 
commit a mistake, to be deterred 
from it by that very fact about it 
which proves it the most attractive. 
Let us, then, undoubtingly, make 
choice of Nero for the hero of what 
we draw here from the Annals of 
Tacitus. There will be found, by 
intelligent readers, a considerable compensation for the sense 
of familiarity experienced, in the satisfaction they will derive 
from the consciousness of having now to do with an original 
source of information on the subject treated. 

The story of Nero, as told by Tacitus, is a long story. Let 
us take a plunge at once into the midst of things. There are 
three associate personages of the plot, to share, almost equally 
with Nero, the interest of the reader. These three are 




NERO AS APOLLO. 



Tacitus. 7 7 



Burrus, Seneca, and, above all, A-grip-pi'na, the emperor's 
mother. Of A-fra'ni-us Burrus and An-nae'us Seneca — this is 
the famous philosopher— Tacitus says : 

These two men guided the emperor's youth with a unity of purpose 
seldom found where authority is shared, and though their accomplish- 
ments were wholly different, they had equal influence. Burrus, with his 
soldier's discipline and severe manners, Seneca, with lessons of eloquence 
and a dignified courtesy, strove alike to confine the frailty of the prince's 
youth, should he loathe virtue, within allowable indulgences. They had 
both alike to struggle against the domineering spirit of Agrippina. 

One of the earliest among the public acts of the youthful 
emperor Nero, was to pronounce a funeral oration on his pred- 
ecessor, Claudius. Tacitus's account of this, with character- 
istic comment of his own interspersed, lets out some secrets 
of Nero's disposition and of the current temper of the time — 
not less, perhaps, also, of the historian's own individual humor : 

On the day of the funeral the prince pronounced Claudius's panegyric, 
and while he dwelt on the antiquity of his family and on the consul- 
ships and triumphs of his ancestors, there was enthusiasm both in him- 
self and his audience. The praise of his graceful accomplishments, 
and the remark that during his reign no disaster had befallen Rome 
from the foreigner, were heard with favor. When the speaker passed 
on to his foresight and wisdom, no one could refrain from laughter, 
though the speech, which was composed by Seneca, exhibited much ele- 
gance, as indeed that famous man had an attractive genius which 
suited the popular ear of the time. Elderly men, who amuse their 
leisure with comparing the past and the present, observed that Nero was 
the first emperor who needed another man's eloquence. The dictator 
Caesar rivaled the greatest orators, and Augustus had an easy and flu- 
ent way of speaking, such as became a sovereign. Tiberius, too, thoroughly 
understood the art of balancing words, and was sometimes forcible in the 
expression of his thoughts, or else intentionally obscure. Even Caius 
Caesar's disordered intellect did not wholly mar his faculty of speech. 
Nor did Claudius, when he spoke with preparation, lack elegance. 
Nero from early boyhood turned his lively genius in other directions ; 
he carved, painted, sang, or practiced the management of horses, occa- 
sionally composing verses which showed that he had the rudiments of 
learning. 



78 College Latin Course i?i English. 

Nero began apparently well. He promised to restore to 
the senate something of its ancient prerogative, and Tacitus 
says he was true to his word. But the evil presiding spirit 
of his mother resisted the young emperor. It is almost in- 
credible, but, according to Tacitus, the senators used to be 
summoned to the imperial palace in order that she, Agrippina, 
"might stand close to a hidden door behind them screened 
by a curtain which was enough to shut her out of sight but 
not out of hearing." Nero was scarcely more than seventeen 
years of age. It seems a cruelty of fortune that, at such an 
age, still under the tuition of such a mother, this pampered 
boy should have been forced into the most dangerous and 
the most conspicuous position in the world. The passions 
of a young man were of course not wanting to a young em- 
peror. He fell in love with a freedwoman and got two 
fashionable young fellows to act as his panders. What 
Tacitus tells of this, and of Nero's relation to his mother, is 
fraught with sad instruction : 

Without the.mofher's knowledge, then in spite of her opposition, they 
[the two young fellows just referred to] had crept into his favor by de- 
baucheries and equivocal secrets, and even the prince's older friends did 
not thwart him, for here was a girl who without harm to any one grati- 
fied his desires, when he loathed his wife Octavia, high born as she was, 
and of approved virtue, either from some fatality, or because vice is 
overpoweringly attractive. . . . 

Agrippina, however, raved with a woman's fury about having a freed- 
woman for a rival, a slave girl for a daughter-in-law, with like expres- 
sions. Nor would she wait till her son repented or wearied of his pas- 
sion. The fouler her reproaches, the more powerfully did they inflame 
him, till, completely mastered by the strength of his desire, he threw off 
all respect for his mother, and put himself under the guidance of Seneca, 
one of whose friends, Annseus Serenus, had veiled the young prince's 
intrigue in its beginning by pretending to be in love with the same 
woman, and had lent his name as the ostensible giver of the presents 
secretly sent by the emperor to the girl. Then Agrippina, changing her 
tactics, plied the lad with various blandishments, and even offered the 
seclusion of her chamber for the concealment of indulgences which 



Tacitus. 79 



youth and the highest rank might claim. She went further ; she 
pleaded guilty to an ill-timed strictness, and handed over to him the 
abundance of her wealth, which nearly approached the imperial treas- 
ures, and from having been of late extreme in her restraint of her son, 
became now, on the other hand, lax to excess. The change did not 
escape Nero; his most intimate friends dreaded it, and begged him to 
beware of the arts of a woman who was always daring and was now 
false. 

But mother and son were equally, for both of them were 
supremely, selfish, and they could not be solidly reconciled 
with each other. The breach -between them soon became 
open and wide. The mother bethought herself of a re- 
source against her son. There was Claudius's son, Bri-tan'ni- 
cus, younger step-brother to Nero. Bri.tannicus had the 
blood of a Caesar in his veins. Nero was Agrippina's son 
by a former husband, not by Claudius. He was, therefore, not 
natural heir to the empire. Tacitus relates : 

Agrippina rushed into frightful menaces, sparing not the prince's 
ears her solemn protest " that Britannicus was now of full age, he who 
was the true and worthy heir of his father's sovereignty, which a son, by 
mere admission and adoption, was abusing in outrages on his mother. 
She shrank not from an utter exposure of the wickedness of that ill- 
starred house, of her own marriage, to begin with, and of her poisoner's 
craft. All that the gods and she herself had taken care of was that her 
stepson was yet alive ; with him she would go to the camp, where on 
one side should be heard the daughter of Germanicus ; on the other, 
the crippled Burrus and the exile Seneca, claiming, forsooth, with 
disfigured hand, and a pedant's tongue, the government of the world." 
As she spoke, she raised her hand in menace and heaped insults on 
him, as she appealed to the deified Claudius, to the infernal shades of 
the Silani, and to those many fruitless crimes. 

The "fruitless crimes" were crimes of Agrippina's own 
committing — fruitless, since the obstinacy of her own boy 
balked her of her purpose in committing them. She had 
meant to be empress of the world. But Nero unexpectedly 
had developed a liking for the game, as well as the name, of 
emperor. He now, stung by the taunts and threats of his 



80 College Latin Course in English. 

mother, entered headlong on his unparalleled career of 
crime. Tacitus : 

Nero was confounded at this, and as the day was near on which Bri- 
tannicus would complete his fourteenth year, he reflected, now on the 
domineering temper of his mother, and now again on the character of 
the young prince, which a trifling circumstance had lately tested, suffi- 
cient however to gain for him wide popularity. During the feast of 
Saturn, amid other pastimes of his playmates, at a game of lot-drawing 
for king, the lot fell to Nero, upon which he gave all his other compan- 
ions different orders, and such as would not put them to the blush ; but 
when he told Britannicus to step forward and begin a song, hoping for 
a laugh at the expense of a boy who knew nothing of sober, much 
less of riotous, society, the lad with perfect coolness commenced some 
verses which hinted at his expulsion from his father's house and from 
supreme power. This procured him pity, which was the more conspic- 
uous, as night with its merriment had stripped off all disguise. Nero 
saw the reproach and redoubled his hate. Pressed by Agrippina's 
menaces, having no charge against his brother and not dai-ing openly to 
order his murder, he meditated a secret device and directed poison to be 
prepared through the agency of Julius Pollio, tribune of one of the 
praetorian cohorts, who had in his custody a woman under sentence for 
poisoning, Locusta by name, with a vast reputation for crime. That 
every one about the person of Britannicus should care nothing for right 
or honor, had long ago been provided for. He actually received his first 
dose of poison from his tutors and passed it off his bowels, as it was 
either rather weak or so qualified as not at once to prove deadly. But 
Nero, impatient at such slow progress in crime, threatened the tribune 
and ordered the poisoner to execution for prolonging his anxiety while 
they were thinking of the popular talk and planning their own defense. 
Then they promised that death should be as sudden as if it were the 
hurried work of the dagger, and a rapid poison of previously tested in- 
gredients was prepared close to the emperor's chamber. 

It was customary for the imperial princes to sit during their meals 
with other nobles of the same age, in the sight of their kinsfolk, at a 
table of their own, furnished somewhat frugally. There Britannicus was 
dining, and as what he ate and drank was always tested by the taste of 
a select attendant, the following device was contrived, that the usage 
might not be dropped or the crime betrayed by the death of both prince 
and attendant. A cup as yet harmless, but extremely hot and already 
tasted, was handed to Britannicus ; then, on his refusing it because of 



Tacitus, 81 



its warmth, poison was poured in with some cold water, and this so 
penetrated his entire frame that he lost alike voice and breath. There 
was a stir among the company ; some, taken by surprise, ran hither and 
thither, while those whose discernment was keener, remained motionless, 
with their eyes fixed on Nero, who, as he still reclined in seeming un- 
consciousness, said that this was a common occurrence, from a periodical 
epilepsy, with which Britannicus had been afflicted from his earliest 
infancy, and that his sight and senses would gradually return. As for 
Agrippina, her terror and confusion, though her countenance struggled 
to hide it, so visibly appeared, that she was clearly just as ignorant as was 
Octavia, Britannicus's own sister. She saw, in fact, that she was robbed 
of her only remaining refuge, and that here was a precedent for par- 
ricide. Even Octavia, notwithstanding her youthful inexperience, had 
learned to hide her grief, her affection, and indeed every emotion. And 
so after a brief pause the company resumed its mirth. 

"Of all things human," remarks Tacitus, "the most pre- 
carious and transitory is a reputation for power which has no 
strong support of its own." This he says on occasion of the 
disgrace of Agrippina, whom her son now sent away from the 
palace and deprived of her military guard. The wretched 
woman, in her weakness, did not fail of enemies to accuse her 
to her son. One accusation, naturally to her son the heaviest, 
was that she was plotting against his emperorship. A certain 
Plautus, so the accusation ran, was encouraged by Agrippina 
to pretend to the throne of the Caesars. Against him and 
the emperor's mother, one Paris was found a willing in- 
former. Tacitus now (let readers not miss the indications 
incidentally dropped by the historian, as to his method in 
treating his authorities) : 

Night was far advanced and Nero was still sitting over his cups, 
when Paris entered, who was generally wont at such times to heighten 
the emperor's enjoyments, but who now wore a gloomy expression. He 
went through the whole evidence in order, and so frightened his hearer 
as to make him resolve not only on the destruction of his mother and 
of Plautus, but also on the removal of Burrus from the command of the 
guards, as a man who had been promoted by Agrippina's interest, and 
was now showing his gratitnde. We have it on the authority of Fabius 
4* 



82 College Latin Course in E?iglish. 

Rusticus that a note was written to Cse-ci"na Tuscus, intrusting to him 
the charge of the praetorian cohorts, but that through Seneca's influence 
that distinguished post was retained for Burrus. According to Plinius 
and Ciuvius, no doubt was felt about the commander's loyalty. Fabius 
certainly inclines to the praise of Seneca, through whose friendship he 
rose to honor. Proposing as I do to follow the consentient testimony 
of historians, I shall give the differences in their narratives under the 
writers' names. Nero, in his bewilderment and impatience to destroy 
his mother, could not be put off till Burrus answered for her death, 
should she be convicted of the crime, but "any one," he said, " much 
more a parent, must be allowed a defense. Accusers there were none 
forthcoming ; they had before them only the word of a single person 
from an enemy's house, and this the night with its darkness and pro- 
longed festivity and every thing savoring of recklessness and folly, was 
enough to refute." 

Having thus allayed the prince's fears, they went at day-break to 
Agrippina, that she might know the charges against her, and either 
rebut them or suffer the penalty. Burrus fulfilled his instructions in 
Seneca's presence, and some of the freedmen were present to witness 
the interview. Then Burrus, when he had fully explained the charges 
with the authors' names, assumed an air of menace. Instantly Agrip- 
pina, calling up all her high spirit, exclaimed, "I wonder not that 
Silana, who has never borne offspring, knows nothing of a mother's 
feelings. Parents do not change their children as lightly as a shame- 
less woman does her paramours. . . . Only let the man come forward 
who can charge me with having tampered with the praetorian cohorts in 
the capital, with having sapped the loyalty of the provinces, or, in a 
word, with having bribed slaves and freedmen into any wickedness. 
Could I have lived wilh Britannicus in the possession of power? And 
if Plautus or any other were to become master of the State so as to sit in 
judgment on me, accusers forsooth would not be forthcoming to charge 
me not merely with a few incautious expressions prompted by the eager- 
ness of affection, but with guilt from which a son alone could absolve me." 

There was profound excitement among those present, and they even 
tried to soothe her agitation, but she insisted on an interview with her 
son. Then, instead of pleading her innocence, as though she lacked 
confidence, or her claims on him byway of reproach, she obtained venge- 
ance on her accusers and rewards for her friends. 

The impudent viciousness of Agrippina enjoyed its momen- 
tary triumph. But its dreadful doom was only postponed. 



Tacitus. 83 



Nero was well on the downward road. Facills descensus, 
and the rate of descent already was swift. Read the record 
(remember that still there was the titular consulship, and 
that still, as of old, the years of the empire were reckoned by 

the names of the consuls) : 

In the consulship of Quintus Vo-lu'si-us and Publius Scipio, there was 
peace abroad, but a disgusting licentiousness at home on the part of 
Nero, who in a slave's disguise, so as to be unrecognized, would wander 
through the streets of Rome, to brothels and taverns, with comrades, 
who seized on goods exposed for sale and inflicted wounds on any whom 
they encountered, some of these last knowing him so little that he even 
received blows himself and showed the marks of them in his face. 
When it was notorious that the emperor was the assailant, and the in- 
sults on men and women of distinction were multiplied, other persons, 
too, on the strength of a license once granted under Nero's name, vent- 
ured with impunity on the same practices, and had gangs of their own, 
till night presented the scenes of a captured city. 

Julius Mon-ta'nus, a senator, but one who had not yet held any office, 
happened to encounter the prince in the darkness, and because he fierce- 
ly repulsed his attack and then on recognizing him begged for mercy, 
as though this was a reproach, was forced to destroy himself. Nero was 
for the future more timid, and surrounded himself with soldiers and a 
number of gladiators, who, when a fray began on a small scale and 
seemed a private affair, were to let it alone, but, if the injured persons 
resisted stoutly, they rushed in with their swords. 

" Was forced to destroy himself." Compulsory suicide be- 
came the favorite form of executing a capital sentence issu- 
ing from the arbitrary will of the emperor. Tacitus is full of 
instances which vary the "monotony of imperial murder with 
every conceivable permutation of incident. Pathetically in- 
structive it is, to come, as one glances along these pages 
dense with tragedy, upon occasional sentences like the fol- 
lowing : " Still there yet remained some shadow of a free 
State." Again, disdaining to do more than merely mention 
the erection of a great amphitheater, Tacitus says : " We have 
learned that it suits the dignity of the Roman people to re- 
serve history for great achievements, and to leave such details 




84 College Latin Course i?i English. 

to the city's daily register." Such expressions as the pre- 
ceding from Tacitus strikingly reveal the char- 
acter of their author. 

The climax of Nero's wickedness, as the gen- 
eral opinion rates it, was his conspiracy to mur- 
der his mother. This crime is now near at 
hand. A woman was the immediate cause. 
That woman was the infamous Pop-pse'a. Let 
popp^ea. Tacitus sketch her for us : 

Poppaea had every thing but a right mind. Her mother, who sur- 
passed in personal attractions all the ladies of her day, had bequeathed 
to her alike fame and beauty. Her fortune adequately corresponded to 
the nobility of her descent. Her conversation was charming and her 
wit any thing but dull. She professed virtue, while she practiced laxity. 
Seldom did she appear in public, and it was always with her face partly 
veiled, either to disappoint men's gaze or to set off her beauty. Her 
character she never spared, making no distinction between a husband 
and a paramour, while she was never a slave to her own passion or to that 
of her lover. Wherever there was a prospect of advantage, there she 
transferred her favors. 

Poppaea was married and had a son, but this did not pre- 
vent her intriguing, and intriguing successfully, for the hand 
of Otho, that favorite of Nero's. She now had what she 
needed in order to get what she wanted, which was — power 
over Nero. Through Otho, used as tool or as accomplice, 
she got access to the emperor. Her shameless arts of seduc- 
tion, and her cool triangulation toward her object, are thus 
described by Tacitus : 

Poppsea won her way by artful blandishments, pretending that she 
could not resist her passion and that she was captivated by Nero's 
person. Soon as the emperor's love grew ardent she would change 
and be supercilious, and, if she were detained more than one or two 
nights, would say again and again that she was a married woman and 
could not give up her husband attached as she was to Otho by a manner 
of life which no one equaled. " His ideas and his style were grand ; 
at his house every thing worthy of the highest fortune was ever before 



Tacitus. 85 



her eyes. Nero, on the contrary, with his slave-girl mistress, tied down 
by his attachment to Acte, had derived nothing from his slavish associa- 
tions but what was low and degrading." 

Tacitus incessantly interrupts his narrative of Nero in re- 
lation to his mistresses, his favorites, and his mother, with 
accounts of various contemporary civil and military transac- 
tions, important to the completeness of the history, but not 
of interest to modern readers. It is, however, worth re- 
marking that the historian, with judicial impartiality, makes 
commendatory note of certain equitable measures adopted 
by Nero for the administration of the empire, adding that 
they " for a short time were maintained and were subse- 
quently disregarded." It seems to have been Tacitus's 
feeling that Nero should have — he certainly needed — all the 
credit that belonged to good attempts on his part, of any 
kind, however momentary. 

The fourteenth book of the Annals covers a period of three 
years, from 59 A. D. to 62. The beginning of the book is 
occupied with narration and description too absorbingly 
interesting to be either abridged or interrupted. We trans- 
fer a long passage, which will not seem long, to these pages. 
(We need to forewarn readers that here, as occasionally 
elsewhere in Tacitus, they will come upon things said and 
suggested by the historian which, for an exercise of reading 
aloud in a mixed company, would require to be touched upon 
very lightly. Such things we should gladly have omitted ; 
but we could not, omitting them altogether, even hint, ade- 
quately, what Tacitus is, and what is the dreadful story that 
Tacitus had it for his mission to tell. It will be noted that 
he always describes vice after the manner of a man strongly 
siding with virtue.) 

In the year of the consulship of Caius Vip-sta'nus and Caius Fon-te'i-us, 
Nero deferred no more a long-meditated crime. Length of power had 
matured his daring, and his passion for Poppsea daily grew more ardent. 
As the woman had no hope of marriage for herself or of Octavia's 



86 College Latin Course in English. 

divorce while Agrippina lived, she would reproach the emperor with 
incessant vituperation and sometimes call him in jest a mere ward who 
was under the rule of others, and was so far from having empire that he 
had not even his liberty. " Why," she asked, "was her marriage put 
off? Was it, forsooth, her beauty and her ancestors, with their tri- 
umphal honors, that failed to please ; or her being a mother, and her 
sincere heart ? No ; the fear was that as a wife at least she would di- 
vulge the wrongs of the Senate, and the wrath of the people at the arro- 
gance and rapacity of his mother. If the only daughter-in-law Agrippina 
could bear was one who wished evil to her son, let her be restored to her 
union with Otho. She would go anywhei"e in the world, where she 
might hear of the insults heaped on the emperor, rather than witness 
them, and be also involved in his perils." 

These and the like complaints, rendered impressive by tears and by 
the cunning of an adulteress, no one checked, as all longed to see the 
mother's power broken, while not a person believed that the son's 
hatred would steel his heart to her murder. 

Cluvius relates that Agrippina in her eagerness to retain her influence 
went so far that more than once at midday, when Nero, even at that 
hour, was flushed with wine and feasting, she presented herself attract- 
ively attired to her half-intoxicated son. . . . When kinsfolk observed 
wanton kisses and caresses, portending infamy, it was Seneca who 
sought a female's aid against a woman's fascinations, and hurried in 
Acte, the freed girl, who alarmed at her own peril, and at Nero's dis- 
grace, told him that the incest was notorious, as his mother boasted of 
it, and that the soldiers would never endure the rule of an impious 
sovereign. Fabius Rusticus tells us that it was not Agrippina, but Nero 
who lusted for the crime, and that it was frustrated by the adroitness of 
that same freed-girl. Cluvius's account, however, is also that of all 
other authors, and popular belief inclines to it, whether it was that 
Agrippina really conceived such a monstrous wickedness in her heart, 
or perhaps because the thought of a strange passion seemed compara- 
tively credible in a woman, who in her girlish years had allowed herself 
to be seduced by Lepidus in the hope of winning power, had stooped with 
a like ambition to the lust of Pallas, and had trained herself for every 
infamy by her marriage with her uncle. 

Nero accordingly avoided secret interviews with her, and when she 
withdrew to her gardens or to her estates at Tusculum and Antium, he 
praised her for courting repose. At last, convinced that she would be 
too formidable, wherever she might dwell, he resolved to destroy her, 
merely deliberating whether it was to be accomplished by poison, or by 



Tacitus. 87 



the sword, or by any other violent means. Poison at first seemed best, 
but, were it to be administered at the imperial table, the result could 
not be referred to chance after the recent circumstances of the death of 
Britannicus. Again, to tamper with the servants of a woman who, 
from her familiarity with crime, was on her guard against treachery, 
appeared to be extremely difficult, and then," too, she had fortified Ler 
constitution by the use of antidotes. How again the dagger and its 
work were to be kept secret, no one could suggest, and it was feared too 
that whoever might be chosen to execute such a crime would spurn the 
order. 

An ingenious suggestion was offered by An-i-ce'tus, a freedman, com- 
mander of the fleet at Mi se'num, who had been tutor to Nero in boy- 
hood and had a hati-ed of Agrippina which she reciprocated. He ex- 
plained that a vessel could be constructed, from which a part might by 
a contrivance be detached, when out at sea, so as to plunge her una- 
wares into the water. "Nothing," he said, "allowed of accidents so 
much as the sea, and should she be overtaken by shipwreck, who would 
be so unfair as to impute to crime an offense committed by the winds 
and waves? The emperor would add the honor of a temple and of 
shrines to the deceased lady, with every other display of filial affection." 

Nero liked the device, favored as it also was by the particular time, for 
he was celebrating Minerva's five days' festival at Bai'ae. Thither he 
enticed his mother by repeated assurances that children ought to bear 
with the irritability of parents and to soothe their tempers, wishing thus 
to spread a rumor of reconciliation and to secure Agrippina's acceptance 
through the feminine credulity, which easily believes what gives joy. As 
she approached, he went to the shore to meet her (she was coming from 
Antium), welcomed her with outstretched hand and embrace, and con- 
ducted her to Bauli. This was the name of a country house, washed by 
a bay of the sea, between the promontory of Misenum and the lake of 
Baiee. Here was a vessel distinguished from others by its equipment, 
seemingly meant, among other things, to do honor to his mother ; for 
she had been accustomed to sail in a trireme, with a crew of marines. 
And now she was invited to a banquet, that night might serve to conceal 
the crime. It was well known that somebody had been found to betray it, 
that Agrippina had heard of the plot, and in doubt whether she was to 
believe it, was conveyed to Baiae in her litter. There some soothing 
words allayed her fear; she was graciously received, and seated at table 
above the emperor. Nero prolonged the banquet with various conversa- 
tion, passing from a youth's playful familiarity to an air of constraint, 
which seemed to indicate serious thought, and then, after protracted fes- 



88 College Latin Course in English. 



tivity, escorted her on her departure, clinging with kisses to her eyes 
and bosom, either to crown his hypocrisy or because the last sight of a 
mother on the eve of destruction caused a lingering even in that brutal 
heart. 

A night of brilliant starlight with the calm of a tranquil sea was granted 
by heaven, seemingly, to convict the crime. The vessel had not gone 
far, Agrippina having with her two of her intimate attendants, one of 
whom,Cre-pe-re / ius Gallus, stood near the helm, while A-cer-ro'ni-a.reclin- 
ing at Agrippina's feet *as she reposed herself, spoke joyfully of her son's 
repentance and of the recovery of the mother's influence, when at a given 
signal the ceiling of the place, which was loaded with a quantity of lead, 
fell in, and Crepereius was crushed and instantly killed. Agrippina 
and Acerronia were protected by the projecting sides of the couch, 
which happened to be too strong to yield under the weight. But this 
was not followed by the breaking up of the vessel ; for all were bewil- 
dered, and those too, who were in the plot, were hindered by the uncon- 
scious majority. The crew then thought it best to throw the vessel on 
one side and so sink it, but they could not themselves promptly unite 
to face the emergency, and others, by counteracting the attempt, gave 
an opportunity of a gentler fall into the sea. Acerronia, however, 
thoughtlessly exclaiming that she was Agiippina, and imploring help 
for the emperor's mother, was dispatched with poles and oar -, and such 
naval implements as chance offered. Agrippina was silent and was 
thus the less recognized ; still, she received a wound in her shoulder. 
She swam, then met with some small boats which conveyed her to 
the Lucrine lake, and so entered her house. 

There she reflected how for this very purpose she had been invited by 
a lying letter and treated with conspicuous honor,*ho\v also it was 
near the shore, not from being driven hy winds or dashed on rocks, that 
the vessel had in its upper part collapsed, like a mechanism any thing 
but nautical. She pondered too the death of Acerronia ; she looked at 
her own wound, and saw that her only safeguard against treachery was 
to ignore it. Then she sent her freedman A-ger-i'nus to tell her son how 
by heaven's favor and his good fortune she had escaped a terrible dis- 
aster ; that she begged him, alarmed, as he might be, by his mother's 
peril, to put off the duty of a visit, as for the present she needed repose. 
Meanwhile, pretending that she felt secure, she applied remedies to her 
wound, and fomentations to her person. She then ordered search to be 
made for the will of Acerronia, and her property to be sealed, in this 
alone throwing off disguise. 

Nero, meantime, as he waited for tidings of the consummation of the 



Tacitus. 89 



deed, received information that she had escaped with the injury of a 
slight wound, after having so far encountered the peril that there 
could be no question as to its author. Then, paralyzed with terror and 
protesting that she would show herself the next moment eager for venge- 
ance, either arming the slaves or stirring up the soldiery, or hastening 
to the Senate and the people, to charge him with the wreck, with her 
wound, and with the destruction of her friends, he asked what resource he 
had against all this, unless something could be at once devised by Burrus 
and Seneca. He had instantly summoned both of them, and possibly 
they were already in the secret. There was a long silence on their part ; 
they feared they might remonstrate in vain, or believed the crisis tc be 
such that Nero must perish, unless Agrippina were at once crushed. 
Thereupon Seneca was so far the more prompt as to glance back on 
Burrus, as if to ask him whether the bloody deed must be required of the 
soldiers. Burrus replied " that the praetorians were attached to the whole 
family of the Caesars, and remembering Ger-man'i-cus would not dare a 
savage deed on his offspring. It was for Anicetus to accomplish his 
promise." 

Anicetus, without a pause, claimed for himself the consummation of 
the crime. At those words, Nero declared that that day gave him em- 
pire, and that a freedman was the author of this mighty boon. "Go," 
he said, "with all speed and take with you the men readiest to execute 
your orders." He himself, when he had heard of the arrival of Agrip- 
pina' s messenger, Agerinus, contrived a theatrical mode of accusation, 
and, while the man was repeating his message, threw down a sword at 
his feet, then ordered him to be put in irons, as a detected criminal, so 
that he might invent a story how his mother had plotted the emperor's 
destruction; and in the shame of discovered guilt had, by her own choice, 
sought death. 

Meantime, Agrippina's peril being universally known and taken to be 
an accidental occurrence, every body, the moment he heard of it, hur- 
ried down to the beach. Some climbed projecting piers ; some the near- 
est vessels ; some, again, stood with outstretched arms, while the whole 
shore rung with wailings, with prayers and cries, as different questions 
were asked and uncertain answers given. A vast multitude streamed to 
the spot with torches, and as soon as all knew that she was safe, they at 
once prepared to wish her joy, till the sight of an armed and threatening 
force scared them away. Anicetus then surrounded the house with a 
guard, and having burst open the gates, dragged oft' the slaves who met 
him, till he came to the door of her chamber, where a few still stood, 
after the rest had fled in terror at the attack. A small lamp was in the 



9 o 



College Latin Course in English. 



room, and one slave-girl with Agrippina, who grew more and more 
anxious, as no messenger came from her son, not even Agerinus, while 
the appearance of the shore was changed, a solitude one moment, then 
sudden bustle and tokens of the worst catastrophe. As the girt rose to 
depart, she exclaimed, " Do you, too, forsake me ? " and looking round 
saw Anicetus, who had with him the captain of the trireme, Her-cu-le'~ 

ius and O-bar'i-tus, a centiu 
rion of marines. " If," said 
she, "you have come to see 
me, take back word that I 
have recovered, but if you are 
here to do a crime, I believe 
nothing about my son ; he 
has not ordered his mother's 
murder." 

The assassins closed in 
round her couch, and the cap- 
tain of the trireme first struck 
her head violently with a club. 
Then, as the centurion bared 
his sword for the fatal deed, 
presenting her person, she ex- 
claimed, " Smite my womb," 
and with many wounds she 
was slain. 

So far our accounts agree. 
That Nero gazed on his moth- 
er after her death and praised 
her beauty some have related, 
while others deny it. Her 
body was burned that same 
night on a dining-couch, with 
a mean funeral ; nor, as long 
as Nero was in power, was 
the earth raised into a mound, or even decently closed. Subsequently 
she received from the solicitude of her domestics, a humble sepulcher on 
the road to Misenum, near the country-house of Caesar the Dictator, 
which from a great height commands a view of the bay beneath. As 
soon as the funeral pile was lighted one of her freedmen, surnamed 
Monester, ran himself through with a sword, either from love of his 
mistress or from the fear of destruction. 




AGRIPPINA. 



Tacitus. 9 1 



Many years before Agrippina had anticipated this end for herself, and 
had spurned the thought. For when she consulted the astrologers about 
Nero, they replied that he would be emperor and kill his mother. " Let 
him kill her," she said, "provided he is emperor." 

But the emperor, when the crime was at last accomplished, realized 
its portentous guilt. The rest of the night, now silent and stupefied, now 
and still oftener starting up in terror, bereft of reason, he awaited the 
dawn as if it would bring with it his doom. He was first encouraged 
to hope by the flattery addressed to him, at the prompting of Burrus, by 
the centurions and tribunes, who again and again pressed his hand and 
congratulated him on his having escaped an unforeseen danger and his 
mother's daring crime. Then his friends went to the temples, and, an 
example having once been set, the neighboring towns of Campania testi- 
fied their joy with sacrifices and deputations. He himself, with an ap- 
posite phase of hypocrisy, seemed sad, and almost angry at his own de- 
liverance, and shed tears over his mother's death. But as the aspects 
of places change not, as do the looks of men, and as he had ever before 
his eyes the dreadful sight of that sea with its shores (some, too, believed 
that the notes of a funeral trumpet were heard from the surrounding 
heights, and wailings from the mother's grave), he retired to Neapolis, 
and sent a letter to the Senate, the' drift of which was that Agerinus, one 
of Agrippina's confidential freedmen, had been detected with the dagger 
of an assassin, and that in the consciousness of having planned the crime 
she had paid its penalty. 

He even revived the charges of a period long past, how she had aimed 
at a share of empire, and at inducing the praetorian cohorts to swear 
obedience to a woman, to the disgrace of the Senate and people ; how, 
when she was disappointed, in her fury with the soldiers, the Senate, 
and the populace, she opposed the usual donative and largess, and or- 
ganized perilous prosecutions against distinguished citizens. What 
efforts had it cost him to hinder her from bursting into the Senate-house 
and giving answers to foreign nations ! He glanced, too, with indirect 
censure at the days of Claudius, and ascribed all the abominations of 
that reign to his mother, thus seeking to show that it was the State's 
good fortune which had destroyed her. For he actually told the story 
of the shipwreck ; but who could be so stupid as to believe that it was 
accidental, or that a shipwrecked woman had sent cne man with a 
weapon to break through an emperor's guards and fleets? So now it was 
not Nero, whose brutality was far beyond any remonstrance, but Seneca, 
who was in ill repute, for having written a confession in such a style. 

Still there was a marvelous rivalry among the nobles in decreeing 



92 College Latin Course in English. 

thanksgivings at all the shrines, and the celebration with annual games 
of Minerva's festival, as the day on which the plot had been discovered ; 
also, that a golden image of Minerva, with a statue of the emperor by 
its side, should be set up in the Senate-house, and that Agrippina's birth- 
day should be classed among the inauspicious days. Thrasea Psetus, 
who had been used to pass over previous flatteries in silence or with 
brief assent, then walked out of the Senate, thereby imperiling him- 
self, without communicating to the other senators any impulse toward 
freedom. 

There occurred, too, a thick succession of portents, which meant noth- 
ing. A woman gave birth to a snake, and another was killed by a 
thunder-bolt in her husband's embrace. Then the sun was suddenly 
darkened and the fourteen districts of the city were struck by lightning. 
All this happened quite without any providential design ; so much so, 
that for many subsequent years Nero prolonged his reign and his 



Can any thing be conceived of more incredible than such 
wickedness as Nero's ? Yes. The baseness exhibited in 
view of Nero's wickedness, by the senate, and by the people 
of Rome, was more incredible still. Tacitus : 

While Nero was lingering in the towns of Campania, doubting how he 
should enter Rome, whether he would find the Senate submissive and 
the populace enthusiastic, all the vilest courtiers, and of these never had 
a court a more abundant crop, argued against his hesitation, by assuring 
him that Agrippina's name was hated, and that her death had height- 
ened his popularity. " He might go without a fear," they said, " and 
experience in his person men's veneration for him." They insisted at 
the same time on preceding him. They found greater enthusiasm than 
they had promised, the tribes coming forth to meet him, the Senate in 
holiday attire, troops of their children and wives arranged according to 
sex and age, tiers of seats raised for the spectacle, where he was to pass, 
as a triumph is witnessed. Thus elated and exulting over his people's 
slavery, he proceeded to the Capitol, performed the thanksgiving, and 
then plunged into all the excesses, which, though ill-restrained, some sort 
of respect for his mother had for awhile delayed. 

"Some sort of respect for his mother " surviving in Nero, 
seems a rather fanciful reason for Tacitus to assign, in ex- 
plaining any part of the emperor's conduct. There follows 



Tacitus. 93 



immediately now from the hand of Tacitus as dreadful a 
picture of omnipotent and frolicsome despotism as ever was 
drawn. It is almost an adequate punishment of the infamy, 
to have the infamy thus pitilessly damned to everlasting 
contempt : 

He had long had a fancy for driving a four-horse chariot, and a no 
less degrading taste for singing to the harp, in a theatrical fashion, 
when he was at dinner. This he would remind people was a royal cus- 
tom, and had been the practice of ancient chiefs ; it was celebrated too 
in the praises of poets and was meant to show honor to the gods. 
Songs, indeed, he said, were sacred to Apollo, and it was in the dress of 
a singer that that great and prophetic deity was seen in Roman temples as 
well as in Greek cities. He could no longer be restrained, when Seneca 
and Burrus thought it best to concede one point that he might not persist 
in both. A space was inclosed in the Vatican valley where he might 
manage his hoi-ses, without the spectacle being public. Soon he actually 
invited all the people of Rome, who extolled him in their praises, like a 
mob which craves for amusements and rejoices when a prince draws 
them the same way. However, the public exposure of his shame acted 
on him as an incentive instead of sickening him, as men expected. 
Imagining that he mitigated the scandal by disgracing many others, he 
brought on the stage descendants of noble families, who sold themselves, 
because they were paupers. As they have ended their days, I think it 
due to their ancestors not to hand down their names. And indeed the 
infamy is his who gave them wealth to reward their degradation rather 
than to deter them from degrading themselves. He prevailed too on 
some well-known Roman knights, by immense presents, to offer their 
services in the amphitheater ; only pay from one who is able to com- 
mand, carries with it the force of compulsion. 

Still, not yet wishing to disgrace himself on a public stage, he insti- 
tuted some games under the title of "juvenile sports," for which people 
of every class gave in their names. Neither rank nor age nor previous 
high promotion hindered any one from practicing the art of a Greek or 
Latin actor, and even stooping to gestures and songs unfit for a man. 
Noble ladies too actually played disgusting parts, and in the grove, 
with which Augustus had surrounded the lake for the naval fight, there 
were erected places for meeting and refreshment, and every incentive to 
excess was offered for sale. Money too was distributed, which the re- 
spectable had to spend under sheer compulsion and which the profligate 
gloried in squandering. Hence a rank growth of abominations and of 



94 College Latin Course in English. 

all infamy. Never did a more filthy rabble add a worse licentiousness 
to our long corrupted morals. Even, with virtuous training, purity is 
not easily upheld ; far less amid rivalries in vice could modesty or 
propriety or any trace of good manners be preserved. Last of all, the 
emperor himself came on the stage, tuning his lute with elaborate care 
and trying his voice with his attendants. There were also present, to 
complete the show, a guard of soldiers with centurions and tribunes, 
and Burrus, who grieved and yet applauded. Then it was that Roman 
knights were first enrolled under the title of Augustani, men in their 
prime and remarkable for their strength, some from a natural frivolity, 
others from the hope of promotion. Day and night they kept up a 
thunder of applause, and applied to the emperor's person and voice the 
epithets of deities. Thus they lived in fame and honor, as if on the 
strength of their merits. 

Nero however, that he might not be known only for his accomplish- 
ments as an actor, also affected a taste for poetry, and drew round him 
persons who had some skill in such compositions, but not yet generally 
recognized. They used to sit with him, stringing together verses pre- 
pared at home, or extemporized on the spot, and fill up his own expres- 
sions, such as they were, just as he threw them off. This is plainly 
shown by the very character of the poems, which have no vigor or in- 
spiration, or unity in their flow. 

He would also bestow some leisure after his banquets on the teachers 
of philosophy, for he enjoyed the wrangles of opposing dogmatists. 
And some there were who liked to exhibit their gloomy faces and looks, 
as one of the amusements of the court. 

It is some relief to the long monotony of shame which 
draws out in Tacitus the story of Nero, to read of distant 
wars and expeditions that meanwhile continued the great 
career" of the empire. Cor'bu-lo is a Roman general, destined 
to a tragical end, who, till near the close of Nero's reign, 
figured conspicuously as conqueror in the East. We have 
here no room for more than this mere mention of Corbulo's 
name. The name of London, scarcely disguised as Lon- 
dinium, catches the eye. The place is spoken of as "much 
frequented by a number of merchants and trading vessels." 
Little did the Roman historian dream that, one day, his his- 
tory would be read by Londoners who could justly claim 



Tacitus. 95 



that their town was a city greater than Rome at its height ever 
was. The British queen, Bo-a-di-ce'a, careers for a moment 
into the pages of Tacitus : 

Boadicea, with her daughters before her in a chariot, went up to tribe 
after tribe, protesting that it was indeed usual for Britons to fight un- 
der the leadership of women. "But now," she said, "it is not as a 
woman descended from noble ancestry, but as one of the people, that I 
am avenging lost freedom, my scourged body, the outraged chastity of 
my daughters. Roman lust has gone so far that not our very persons, 
nor even age or virginity, are left unpolluted. But heaven is on the side 
of a righteous vengeance ; a legion which dared to fight has perished ; 
the rest are hiding themselves in their camp, or are thinking anxiously 
of flight. They will not sustain even the din and the shout of so many 
thousands, much less our charge and our blows. If you weigh well the 
strength of the armies, and the causes of the war, you will see that in 
this battle you must conquer or die. This is a woman's resolve ; as for 
men, they may live and be slaves." 

Tennyson, among his " Experiments," so-called, has a 
powerful poem, in a peculiar measure, entitled " Boadicea." 
This will be read with interest, as explained and illustrated 
by the full text of Tacitus — which full text we have not room 
for, but which will be found in the fourteenth book, chapters 
29-35, of the Annals. Tennyson's "Boadicea" is, in fact, a 
poet's paraphrase and amplification of the brave and touch- 
ing story of the British queen, as told by the ancient histo- 
rian. Tennyson puts into the speech of Boadicea matter 
related by Tacitus in paragraphs of his history preceding 
that which we quote above. This is picturesque, as Tenny- 
son knows how to produce the picturesque : 

So the Queen Boadicea, standing loftily charioted, 
Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like, 
Yelled and shrieked between her daughters in her fierce volubility, 
Till her people all around the royal chariot agitated, 
Madly dashed the darts together, writhing barbarous lineaments, 
Made the noise of frosty woodlands, when they shiver in January, 
Roared as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices. 
Yelled as when the winds of winter tear an oak on a promontory. 



g6 College Latin Course in English. 

Burrus makes his figure in the pages of Tacitus, rather 
through the praises bestowed upon him by the historian, 
than through any recital of things that he achieved. His 
end was not without accompaniment of tragedy. The tale 
is, with that suggestion of pathos so characteristic of Tacitus, 
and in him so effective, thus briefly told by the historian : 

While the miseries of the State were daily growing worse, its supports 
were becoming weaker. Burrus died, whether from illness or from 
poison was a question. It was supposed to be illness from the fact that 
from the gradual swelling of his throat inwardly and the closing up of 
the passage he ceased to breathe. Many positively asserted that by 
Nero's order his throat was smeared with some poisonous drug under 
the pretense of the application of a remedy, and that Burrus, who saw 
through the crime, when the emperor paid him a visit, recoiled with 
horror from his gaze, and merely replied to his question, " I indeed am 
well." Rome felt for him a deep and lasting regret, because of the 
remembrance of his worth, because too of the merely passive virtue of 
one of his successors and the very flagrant iniquities of the other. 

The fall from power of Seneca was as graceful, decorous, 
and dignified a piece of acting, as a scene well presented 
out of the French classic drama of the seventeenth century. 
Readers will think of Wolsey and King Henry the Eighth. 
Tacitus: 

The death of Burrus was a blow to Seneca's power, for virtue had not 
the same strength when one of its champions, so to say, was removed, 
and Nero too began to lean on worse advisers. They assailed Seneca 
with various charges, representing that he continued to increase a wealth 
which was already so vast as to be beyond the scale of a subject, and 
was drawing to himself the attachment of the citizens, while in the 
picturesqueness of his gardens and the magnificence of his country- 
houses he almost surpassed the emperor. They further alleged against 
him that he claimed for himself alone the honors of eloquence, and com- 
posed poetry more assiduously, as soon as a passion for it had seized on 
Nero. " Openly inimical to the prince's amusements, he disparaged his 
ability in driving horses, and ridiculed his voice whenever he sang. 
When was there to be an end of nothing being publicly admired but 
what Seneca was thought to have originated ! Surely Nero's boyhood 



Tacitus. 97 



was over, and he was all but in the prime of youthful manhood. He 
ought to shake off a tutor, furnished as he was with sufficiently noble 
instructors in his own ancestors." 

Seneca meanwhile, aware of these slanders, which were revealed to 
him by those who had some respect for merit, coupled with the fact that 
the emperor more and more shunned his intimacy, besought the oppor- 
tunity of an interview. This was granted, and he spoke as follows : 

"It is fourteen years ago, Csesar, that I was first associated with your 
prospects, and eight years since you have been emperor. In the interval 
you have heaped on me such honors and riches that nothing is wanting 
to my happiness but a right use of it. I will refer to great examples 
taken not from my own but from your position. Your great-grandfather 
Augustus granted to Marcus Agrippa the calm repose of Mit-y-le'ne, to 
Caius Maecenas what was nearly equivalent to a foreign retreat in the 
capital itself. One of these men shared his wars; the other struggled 
with many laborious duties at Rome ; both received rewards which were 
indeed splendid, but only proportioned to their great merits. For my- 
self, what other recompense had I for your munificence than a culture 
nursed, so to speak, in the shade of retirement, and to which a glory 
attaches itself, because I thus seemed to have helped on the early train- 
ing of your youth, an ample reward for the service. 

44 You on the other hand have surrounded me with vast influence and 
boundless wealth, so that I often think within myself, Am I, who am 
but of an equestrian and provincial family, numbered among the chief 
men of Rome? Among nobles who can show a long succession of 
glories, has my new name become famous ? Where is the mind once 
content with an humble lot? Is this the man who is building up his 
garden terraces, who paces grandly through the suburban parks, and 
revels in the affluence of such broad lands and such widely spread in- 
vestments ? Only one apology occurs to me, that it would not have 
been right in me to have thwarted your bounty. 

'- And yet we have both filled up our respective measures, you in giving 
as much as a prince can bestow on a friend, and I in receiving as much 
as a friend can receive from a prince. All else only fosters envy, which, 
like all things human, sinks powerless beneath your greatness, though 
on me it weighs heavily. To me relief is a necessity. Just as I should 
implore support if exhausted by warfare or travel, so in this journey of 
life, old as I am and unequal even to the lightest cares, since I cannot 
any longer bear the burden of my wealth, I crave assistance. Order 
my property to be managed by your agents and to be included in your 
estate. Still I shall not sink myself into povertv, but having surrendered 
5 



98 College Latin Course in English. 

the splendors which dazzle me, I will henceforth again devote to my 
mind all the leisui-e and attention now reserved for my gardens and country 
houses. You have yet before you a vigorous prime, and that on which 
for so many years your eyes were fixed, supreme power. We, your 
older friends, can answer for our quiet behavior. It will likewise re- 
dound to your honor that you have raised to the highest places men 
who could also bear moderate fortune." 

Nero's reply was substantially this : " My being able to meet your 
elaborate speech with an instant rejoinder is, I consider, primarily your 
gift, for you taught me how to express myself not only after reflection 
but at a moment's notice. My great grandfather Augustus allowed 
Agrippa and Maecenas to enjoy rest after their labors, but he did it at an 
age carrying with it an authority sufficient to justify any boon, of any 
sort, he might have bestowed. But neither of them did he strip of the 
rewards he had given. It was by war and its perils they had earned 
them ; for in these the youth of Augustus was spent. And if I had 
passed my years in arms, your sword and right hand would not have 
failed me. But, as my actual condition required, you watched over my 
boyhood, then over my youth, with wisdom, counsel, and advice. And 
indeed your gifts to me will, as long as life holds out, be lasting posses- 
sions ; those which you owe to me, your parks, investments, your country 
houses, are liable to accidents. Though they seem much, many far in- 
ferior to you in merit have obtained more. I am ashamed to quote the 
names of freedmen who parade a greater wealth. Hence I actually 
blush to think that, standing as you do at first in my affections, you do 
not as yet surpass all in fortune. 

"Yours too is still a vigorous manhood, quite equal to the labors of busi- 
ness and to the fruit of those labors ; and, as for myself, I am but tread- 
ing the threshold of empire. But perhaps you count yourself inferior to 
Vitellius, thrice a consul, and me to Claudius. Such wealth as long thrift 
has procured for Volusius, my bounty, you think, cannot fully make up 
to you. Why not rather, if the frailty of my youth goes in any respect 
astray, call me back and guide yet more zealously with your help the 
manhood which you have instructed? It will not be your moderation, 
if you restore me your wealth, not your love of quiet, if you forsake your 
emperor, but my avarice, the fear of my cruelty, which will be in all 
men's mouths. Even if your self-control were praised to the utmost, still 
it would not be seemly in a wise man to get glory for himself in the very 
act of bringing disgrace on his friend." 

To these words the emperor added embraces and kisses ; for he was 
formed by nature and trained by habit to veil his hatred under delusive 



Tacitus. 99 



flattery. Seneca thanked him. the usual end of an interview with a 
despot. But he entirely altered the practices of his former greatness ; 
he kept the crowds of his visitors at a distance, avoided trains of follow- 
ers, seldom appeared in Rome, as though weak health or philosophical 
studies detained him at home. 

It is quite impossible, within the space at our command, 
to make anything like an adequate impression of the dread- 
ful and shameful tragedy that drags itself interminably along, 
through all the pages of Tacitus that tell the story of Nero. 
Shame after shame, crime after crime, file before your eyes 
in ghastly procession. You shudder, but you are fascinated 
to gaze. 

Marie Antoinette had in some respects her ancient coun- 
terpart in Octavia, the fair young wife of Nero. Poppaea 
was intolerant of any rival to her claim of absolute power 
over the emperor. Octavia must be driven from Nero's 
side, that Poppaea may marry him. For this purpose, an in- 
famous accusation of intrigue on her part with a slave, is 
brought against Octavia. Her slave-girls were tortured to 
make them swear against their mistress. But one of them 
bravely swore that her mistress's person was purer than 
the mouth of the man who accused her. Octavia could not 
be condemned ; but the emperor could divorce her. Di- 
vorced she was, and banished. The common people mut- 
tered dangerously in her favor, and the coward tyrant was 
fain to take her back. But the populace proved imprudent 
friends to Octavia. They flung down the statues of Poppaea 
and decked the images of the empress. They even rioted into 
the palace, with menacing shouts of joy. The soldiers dis- 
persed them thence. But the popular triumph had already 
been carried too far. The reaction was fatal to Octavia. 

A new crime was charged upon her. The emperor sum- 
moned Anicetus, the man that before had helped make away 
with his mother, and suborned him to confess an intrigue with 
Octavia. He should be secured from evil consequence and 



ioo College Latin Course in English. 

be well rewarded ; if he refused, he should die. Anicetus 
was not wanting to the emperor's wish. Tacitus, with that 
condensed pessimistic sarcasm of his, simply adds : " He 
[Anicetus] was then banished to Sardinia, where he endured 
exile without poverty and died a natural death." One is re- 
minded of Juvenal's kindred remark concerning an infamous 
exile, prospering in spite of his crimes, that he " basked in 
the wrath of heaven." 

Octavia was branded adulteress by the false husband's own 
perjury, and sent in exile to an obscure island. Tacitus, 
with noble restrained pathos, says : 

No exile ever filled the eyes of beholders with tears of greater com- 
passion. Some still remembered Agrippina, banished by Tiberius, and 
the yet fresher memory of Julia, whom Claudius exiled, was present to 
men's thoughts. But they had life's prime for their stay ; they had seen 
some happiness, and the horror of the moment was alleviated by recol- 
lections of a better lot in the past. For Octavia, from the first, her mar- 
riage-day was a kind of funeral, brought, as she was, into a house 
where she had nothing but scenes of mourning, her father and, an in- 
stant afterward, her brother, having been snatched from her by poison ; 
then, a slave-girl raised above the mistress ; Poppaea married only to in- 
sure a wife's ruin, and, to end all, an accusation more horrible than any 
death. 

The brief sequel is unspeakably sad : 

And now the girl, in her twentieth year, with centurions and soldiers 
around her, already removed from among the living by 
the forecast of doom, still could not reconcile herself to 
death. After an interval of a few days she received an 
order that she was to die, although she protested that she 
was now a widow and only a sister, and appealed to 
their common ancestors, the Germanici, and finally to the 
name of Agrippina, during whose life she had endured a 
marriage, which was miserable enough indeed, but not 
fatal. She was then tightly bound with cords, and the 
veins of every limb were opened; but as her blood was 
congealed by terror and flowed too slowly, she was killed 
outright by the steam of an intensely hot bath. To this was added the 




Tacitus. 101 



yet more appalling horror of Poppaea beholding the severed head which 
was conveyed to Rome. 

If there were wanting any thing to complete the shame and 
horror of such deeds, the servile senate supplied the defi- 
ciency. Tacitus, now, speaking with a scorn too scornful to 
condescend to express itself explicitly : 

And for all this offerings were voted to the temples. I record the 
fact with a special object. Whoever would study the calamities of 
that period in my pages or those of other authors, is to take it for granted 
that as often as the emperor directed banishments or executions, so often 
was there a thanksgiving to the gods, and what formerly commemorated 
some prosperous event, was then a token of public disaster. Still, if any 
decree of the Senate was marked by some new flattery, or by the lowest 
servility, I shall not pass it over in silence. 

Foils to the indescribable baseness of the senate, and re- 
liefs to the indescribable depravity of the emperor, are pro- 
vided by Tacitus, not only in the names of Burrus and Sen- 
eca, but also in the name of now and then a solitary ex- 
ample of surviving Roman virtue, like Memmius, Reg'u-lus, 
Thra-se'a. The whole effect resulting is scarcely more than to 
deepen a little the dark of the picture by contrast of bright. 
Corbulo likewise moves with the air of antique Roman 
grandeur, through that part of the imperial drama which 
meantime is enacted in the East. The reverberation of his 
wars reaches Rome like the sound of " thunder heard re- 
mote." We have no space in these pages to introduce the 
nobler background against which, on the canvas of Tacitus, 
Nero's effeminacy and depravity show conspicuous with a 
shame the more fatal to his memory. But consider in mercy 
— what boy ever came to " that heritage of woe," supreme des- 
potic power, under auspices blacker than those which frowned 
on the youth of this imperial wretch? 

The following extract from Tacitus will indicate what ex- 
pedients of legislation were adopted to encourage among 
degenerate Romans the propagation of children, for the re- 



io2 College Latin Course in English. 



juvenating and strengthening of the enfeebled state; and 
what tricks, too, of private practice were resorted to for eva- 
sion of the laws : 

A very demoralizing custom had at this time become rife, of fictitious 
adoptions of children, on the eve of the elections or of the assignment of 
the provinces, by a number of childless persons, who, after obtaining 
along with real fathers praetorships and provinces, forthwith dismissed 
from paternal control the sons whom they had adopted. An appeal was 
made to the Senate under a keen sense of wrong. Parents pleaded 
natural rights and the anxieties of nurture against fraudulent evasions 
and the brief ceremony of adoption. " It was," they argued, "suffi- 
cient reward for the childless to have influence and distinction, every 
thing, in short, easy and open to them, without a care and without a 
burden. For themselves, they found that the promises held out by the 
laws, for which they had long waited, were turned into mockery, when 
one who knew nothing of a parent's solicitude or of the sorrows of be- 
reavement could rise in a moment to the level of a father's long deferred 
hopes." 

On this, a decree of the Senate was passed that a fictitious adoption 
should be of no avail in any department of the public service, or even 
hold good for acquiring an inheritance. 

The destruction of Pom-pei'i is thus briefly narrated : 

An earthquake too demolished a large part of Pompeii, a populous 
town in Campania. 

Nero had a daughter born to him by Poppsea. The little 
creature's life happily was brief, but the eager servility of the 
*enate, and the drunken pride of the despot, alike at her 
birth and at her death, appear in strong colors. Tacitus : 

The place of Poppsea's confinement was the colony of Antium, where 
the emperor himself was born. Already had the Senate commended 
Poppoea's safety to the gods, and had made vows in the State's name, which 
were repeated again and again and duly discharged. To these was 
added a public thanksgiving, and a temple was decreed to the goddess of 
fecundity, as well as games and contests after the type of the ceremo- 
nies commemorative of Actium, and golden images of the two Fortunes 
were to be set up on the throne of Jupiter of the Capitol. Shows too of 
the circus were to be exhibited in honor of the Claudian and Domitian 



Tacitus. 103 



families at Antium, like those at Bo-vil'lse in commemoration of the Ju'li-i. 
Transient distinctions all of them, as within four months the infant 
died. Again there was an outburst of flattery, men voting the honors of 
deification, of a shrine, a temple, and a priest. 

The emperor, too, was as excessive in his grief as he had been in his 
joy. It was observed that when all the Senate rushed out to Antium to 
honor the recent birth, Thrasea was forbidden to go, and received with 
fearless spirit an affront which foreboded his doom. Then followed, 
as rumor says, an expression from the emperor, in which he boasted 
to Seneca of his reconciliation with Thrasea, on which Seneca con- 
gratulated him. And now henceforth the glory and the peril of these 
illustrious men grew greater. 

There still recur at intervals those interludes of distant 
thunder muttered on the frontier of the empire, in the war- 
like operations of Corbulo. Frequently the eye is caught 
with dense and weighty sayings of the historian, which the 
temptation is great to transfer to these pages. But the effect 
would be, of course, much impaired by removal from the 
setting in which they originally appear. Of Corbulo's man- 
ner in public discourse Tacitus — himself, let it be remem- 
bered, of the highest repute as an orator — says, " He spoke 
with much impressiveness, which in him, as a military man, 
was as good as eloquence." Macaulay might have said that 
of the Duke of Wellington. 

Nero took the pleasures of empire with a boyish delight 
that was not far off from malignity. It was perhaps an emo- 
tion as much malicious as insane, the gratification he expe- 
rienced in making the proud patricians of Rome applaud 
him while he disgraced himself in their eyes by appearing, 
in private and in public, as a singer. But even Nero ex- 
ercised his caution, in trying what the Roman public would 
bear in their emperor. It was now the year 64, and Nero 
was a young fellow of about twenty-six. Tacitus : 

A yet keener impulse urged Nero to show himself frequently on the 
public stage. Hitherto he had sung in private houses or gardens, dur- 
ing the Juvenile games, but these he now despised, as being but little 



ro4 College Latin Course in English. 

frequented, and on too small a scale for so fine a voice. As, however, 
he did not venture to make a beginning at Rome, he chose Neapolis, 
because it was a Greek city. From this as his starting-point he might 
cross into Achaia, and there, winning the well known and sacred gar- 
lands of antiquity, evoke, with increased fame, the enthusiasm of the 
citizens. 

But Tacitus says of Nero, that " even amid his pleasures 
there was no cessation to his crimes." It is only because 
the limits of our space forbid, that we omit to tell how in- 
stance after instance occurs of Romans the most conspicu- 
ous for virtue forced under imperial pressure to make away 
with themselves by suicide — the preferred method of which 
suicide was to open the veins, or the arteries, and bleed to 
death. 

Here is something told whose very incredibleness vouches 
for its reality. For, had it not actually occurred, how could 
an historian like Tacitus have related it? The horror of 
it will be an antiseptic to its impurity. It may most appro- 
priately be read by each reader alone : 

Nero, to win credit for himself of enjoying nothing so much as the 
capita], prepared banquets in the public places, and used the whole city, 
so to say, as his private house. Of these entertainments the most famous 
for their notorious profligacy were those furnished by Tig-el-li'nus, which 
I will describe as an illustration, that I may not have again and again to 
narrate similar extravagance. He had a raft constructed on Agrippa's 
lake, put the guests on board and set it in motion by other vessels tow- 
ing it. These vessels glittered with gold and ivory; the crews were 
arranged according to age and experience in vice. Birds and beasts 
had been procured from remote countries, and sea monsters from the 
ocean. On the margin of the lake were set up brothels crowded with 
noble ladies, and on the opposite bank were seen naked prostitutes with 
obscene gestures and movements. As darkness approached, all the ad- 
jacent grove and surrounding buildings resounded with song and shone 
brilliantly with lights. Nero, who polluted himself by every lawful or 
lawless indulgence, had not omitted a single abomination which could 
heighten his depravity, till a few days afterward he stooped to marry 
himself to one of that filthy herd, by name Pythagoras, with all the forms 
of regular wedlock. The bridal veil was put over the emperor ; people 



Tacitus. 105 



saw the witnesses of the ceremony, the wedding dower, the couch and 
the nuptial torches ; every thing, in a word, was plainly visible, which, 
even when a woman weds, darkness hides. 

And now follows the famous infamy of the burning of 
Rome under Nero, with its horrible sequel : 

A disaster followed, whether accidental or treacherously contrived by 
the emperor, is uncertain, as authors have given both accounts, worse, 
however, and more dreadful than any which have ever happened to this 
city by the violence of fire. It had its beginning in that part of the circus 
which adjoins the Palatine and Caelian hills, where, amid the shops con- 
taining inflammable wares, the conflagration both broke out and in- 
stantly became so fierce and so rapid from the wind that it seized in its 
grasp the entire length. of the circus. For here there were- no houses 
fenced in by solid masonry, or temples surrounded by walls, or any other 
obstacle to interpose delay. The blaze in its fury ran first through the 
level portions of the city, then rising to the hills, while it again devas- 
tated every place below them, it outstripped all preventive measures ; 
so rapid was the mischief and so completely at its mercy the city, with 
those narrow winding passages and irregular streets, which character- 
ized old Rome. Added to this were the wailings of terror-stricken 
women, the feebleness of age, the helpless inexperience of childhood, 
the crowds who sought to save themselves and others, dragging out the 
infirm or waiting for them, and by their hurry in the one case, by their 
delay in the other, aggravating the confusion. Oflen, while they looked 
behind them, they were intercepted by flames on their side or in their 
face. Or if they reached a refuge close at hand, when this too was 
seized by the fire, they found, that even places which they had imagined 
to be remote, were involved in the same calamity. At last, doubting 
what they should avoid or whither betake themselves, they crowded the 
streets or flung themselves down in the fields, while some who had 
lost their all, even their very daily bread, and others out of love foi their 
kinsfolk, whom they had been unable to rescue, perished, though escape 
was open to them. And no one dared to stop the mischief, because of 
incessant menaces from a number of persons who forbade the extin- 
guishing of the flames, because again others openly hurled brands, and 
kept shouting that there was one who gave them authority, either seek- 
ing to plunder more freely, or obeying orders. 

Nero at this time was at Antium, and did not return to Rome until 
the fire approached his house, which he had built to connect the palace 
with the gardens of Maecenas. It could not, however, be stopped from 
5* 



7o6 College Latin Course in English. 



devouring the palace, the house, and every thing around it. However, 
to relieve the people, driven out homeless as they were, he threw open 
to them the Campus Martius and the public buildings of Agrippa, and 
even his own gardens, and raised temporary structures to receive the 
destitute multitude. Supplies of food were brought up from Ostia and 
the neighboring towns, and the price of corn was reduced to three 
sesterces a peck. These acts, though popular, produced no effect, since 
a rumor had gone forth every- where that, at the very time that the city 
was in flames, the emperor appeared on a private stage and sang of the 
destruction of Troy, comparing present misfortunes with the calamities 
of antiquity. 

At last, after five days, an end was put to the conflagration at the foot 
of the Esquiline hill, by the destruction of all buildings on a vast space, so 
that the violence of the fire was met by clear ground and open sky. 
But before people had laid aside their fears, the flames returned, with 
no less fury this second time, and especially in the spacious districts of 
the city. Consequently, though there was less loss of life, the temples 
of the gods, and the porticoes which were devoted to enjoyment, fell in 
a yet more wide-spread ruin. And to this conflagration there attached 
the greater infamy because it broke out on the ^Emilian property of 
Tigellinus, and it seemed that Nero was aiming at the glory of found- 
ing a new city and calling it by his name. Rome, indeed, is divided 
into fourteen districts, four of which remained uninjured, three were 
leveled to the ground, while in the other seven were left only a few 
shattered, half burnt relics of houses. 

Tacitus relates that Nero "availed himself of his country's 
desolation, and erected a mansion in which the jewels and 
gold, long familiar objects, quite vulgarized by our extrava- 
gance, were not so marvelous as the fields and lakes, with 
woods on one side to resemble a wilderness, and, on the 
other, open spaces and extensive views." Many audacious 
public works were undertaken, some of them in absolute de- 
fiance of the laws of nature. The city was splendidly re- 
built, and the gods were elaborately propitiated — in vain. 
Tacitus says — and here occurs the sole mention deemed 
necessary by the historian to be made, of a certain religious 
sect, destined, however little he dreamed it, to multiply, and 
to endure, untold centuries after that imperial Rome of which 



Tacitus. 107 



he wrote should have become a name and a memory — Taci- 
tus says : 

All human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitia- 
tions of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration 
was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero 
fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class 
hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Chris° 
tus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty 
during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, 
Pon'ti-us Pi-la'tus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for 
the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the 
evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from 
every part of the world find their center and become popular. Accord- 
ingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty ; then, upon 
their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of 
the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of 
every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, 
they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were 
doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, 
when daylight had expired. 

Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show 
in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a chari- 
oteer or stood aloft on a cai\ Hence, even for criminals who deserved 
extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compas- 
sion ; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one 
man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed. 

The woild now was ransacked and plundered to glut the 
passion of the emperor for profuse expenditure. The tem- 
ples of the gods did not escape. Seneca felt that his own 
person was in danger, should he stick at committing sacri- 
lege at the beck of the emperor. He, therefore — "it was 
said," as Tacitus cautiously relates it — : 

To avert from himself the obloquy of sacrilege, begged for the seclu- 
sion of a remote rural retreat, and, when it was refused; feigning ill 
health, as though he had a nervous ailment, would not quit his chamber. 
According to some writers, poison was prepared for him at Nero's com- 
mand by his own freedman, whose name was Cleonnicus. This Seneca 
avoided through the freedman's disclosure, or his own apprehension, 



io8 College Latin Course in English. 

while he used to support life on the very simple diet of wild fruits, with 
water from a running stream when thirst prompted. 

Wantonness of despotism, such as Nero's, could not but 
provoke conspiracy against the despot. Tacitus gives a cir- 
cumstantial account of a plot which, having gone near to 
success, failed, at the critical point, through the perfidy of a 
freedman. The fidelity unto death of a freedwoman affords 
a striking contrast. Tacitus thus admiringly describes this 
woman's conduct : 

Nero, meanwhile, remembering that E-pich'a-ris was in custody on the 
information of Vo-lu / si-us Proc'u-lus, and assuming that a woman's frame 
must be unequal to the agony, ordered her to be torn on the rack. But 
neither the scourge nor fire, nor the fury of the men as they increased the 
torture that they might not be a woman's scorn, overcame her positive 
denial of the charge. Thus the first day's inquiry was futile. On the 
morrow, as she was being dragged back on a chair to the same torments 
(for with her limbs all dislocated she could not stand), she tied a band, 
which she had stript off her bosom, in a sort of noose to the arched back 
of the chair, put her neck in it, and then straining with the whole weight 
of her body, wrung out of her frame its little remaining breath. All the 
nobler was the example set by a freedwoman at such a crisis in screening 
strangers and those whom she hardly knew, when freeborn men, Ro- 
man knights, and senators, yet unscathed by torture, betrayed, every one, 
his dearest kinsfolk. 

Following the exposure of the plot, comes a sickening list 
of horrors in revenge, enacted under order of Nero. These 
involve the doom, now no longer to be postponed, of Seneca, 
the philosopher. Seneca was not a convicted conspirator. 
He was, perhaps, not even seriously suspected of conspiring. 
But Nero hated him, and would at all cost be rid of him. 
Seneca was reported to have said, ambiguously and darkly, 
concerning a man involved in the plot : " I will not talk with 
him, but my own safety is bound up in his." This was 
enough. Seneca was given the opportunity, at his option, 
to acknowledge or to repudiate the language attributed to 
him. He answered proudly and bravely. Nero, on receiv- 



Taciliis. 



109 



ing the report of his answer, asked, " Is he meditating sui- 
cide ? " The officer said he saw in Seneca no signs of fear 
and no signs of low spirits. He was bidden go back and tell 
Seneca to make away with himself. Now Tacitus : 

Seneca, quite unmoved, asked for tablets on which to inscribe his 
will, and, on the centurion's refusal, turned to his friends, protesting 
that as he was forbidden to requite them, he bequeathed to them the 
only, but still the noblest, possession yet remaining to him, the pattern 
of his life, which, if they remembered, they would win a name for moral 
worth and steadfast friendship. At the same time [braced, beyond doubt, 
by the remembered example of Socrates], he called them back from their 
tears to manly resolution, now with friendly talk, and now with the 
sterner language of rebuke. " Where," he asked again and again, " are 
your maxims of philosophy, or the preparation of so many years' study 
against evils to come ? Who knew not Nero's cruelty ? After a moth- 
er's and a brother's murder, nothing remains but to add the destruction 
of a guardian and a tutor." 

Having spoken these and like words, meant, so to say, for all, he em- 
braced his wife ; then softening awhile from the stern resolution of the 
hour, he begged and implored her to spare herself the burden of per- 
petual sorrow, and, in the contemplation of a life virtuously spent, to 
endure a husband's loss with honorable consolations. She declared, in 
answer, that she too had decided to die, and claimed for herself the 
blow of the executioner. Thereupon Seneca, not to thwart her noble 
ambition, from an affection too which would not leave behind him for 
insult one whom he dearly loved, replied : " I have shown you ways of 
smoothing life ; you prefer the glory of dying. I will not grudge you 
such a noble example. Let the fortitude of so courageous an end 
be alike in both of us, but let there be more in your decease to win 
fame." 

Then by one and the same stroke they sundered with a dagger the 
arteries of their arms. Seneca, as his aged frame, attenuated by frugal 
diet, allowed the blood to escape but slowly, severed also the veins of 
his legs and knees. Worn out by cruel anguish, afraid too that his 
sufferings might break his wife's spirit, and that, as he looked on her 
tortures, he might himself sink into irresolution, he pei-suaded her to 
retire into another chamber. Even at the last moment his eloquence 
failed him not ; he summoned his secretaries, and dictated much to 
them which, as it has been published for all readers in his own words, I 
forbear to paraphrase. 



no 



College Latin Course in English. 



Seneca's wife was not thus to die with her husband. She 
must survive him ; and must so incur a reaction of suspicion 
against herself, that will cloud the fame of her courage. 
Nero, not hating her, and not wishing to aggravate with the 
people the odium of his cruelty, forbade her to die. Tacitus 
again : 

At the soldiers' prompting, her slaves and freedmen bound up her arms, 
and stanched the bleeding, whether with her knowledge is doubtful. 
For as the vulgar are ever ready to think the worst, there were persons 
who believed that, as long as she dreaded Nero's relentlessness, she 
sought the glory of sharing her husband's death, but that after a time, 
when a more soothing prospect presented itself, she yielded to the 
charms of life. To this she added a few subsequent years, with a most 
praiseworthy remembrance of her husband, and with a countenance and 
frame white to a degree of pallor which denoted a loss of much vital 
energy. 

The historian returns to finish the slow suicide of Seneca: 

Seneca meantime, as the tedious process of death still lingered on, 
begged Sta'ti-us An-nse'us, whom he had long esteemed for his faithful 
friendship and medical skill, to produce a 
poison with which he had some time before 
provided himself, the same drug which ex- 
tinguished the life of those who were con- 
demned by a public sentence of the people 
of Athens. It was brought to him and he 
drank it in vain, chilled as he was through- 
out his limbs, and his frame closed against 
the efficacy of the poison. At last he en- 
tered a pool of heated water, from which 
he sprinkled the nearest of his slaves, adding 
the exclamation, " I offer this liquid as a li- 
seneca. bation to Jupiter the Deliverer." He was 

then carried into a bath, with the steam of which he was suffocated, 
and he was burned without any of the usual funeral rites. So he had 
directed in a codicil of his will, when even in the height of his wealth 
and power he was thinking of his life's close. 

Rumor could not fail to breed plentifully in the teeming 
ferment of such crime and such tragedy. Subrius Flavus 




Tacitus. in 



was a chief conspirator from among the soldiers of Nero, 
while Piso was the figure-head put forward as pretender to 
the empire in Nero's room. Now let Tacitus give us, in his 
own words, a popular rumor affecting these two men, in con- 
nection with Seneca : 

There was a rumor that Subrius Flavus had held a secret consultation 
with the centurions, and had planned, not without Seneca's knowledge, 
that when Nero had been slain by Piso's instrumentality, Piso also was to 
be murdered, and the empire handed over to Seneca, as a man singled out 
for his splendid virtues by all persons of integrity. Even a saying of 
Flavus was popularly current, "that it mattered not as to the disgrace 
if a harp-player were removed and a tragic actor succeeded him." 
For as Nero used to sing to the harp, so did Piso in the dress of a 
tragedian. 

Subrius Flavus did not escape. But he died at last with a 
scornful bravery that has immortalized his fame. Tacitus : 

Questioned by Nero as to the motives which had led him on to forget 
his oath of allegiance, " I hated you," he replied; " yet not a soldier was 
more loyal to you while you deserved to be loved I began to hate you 
when you became the murderer of your mother and your wife, a chari- 
oteer, an actor, and an incendiary." I have given the man's very words, 
because they were not, like those of Seneca, generally published, 
though the rough and vigorous sentiments of a soldier ought to be no 
less known. 

Throughout the conspiracy nothing, it was certain, fell with more terror 
on the ears of Nero, who was as unused to be told of the crimes he 
perpetrated as he was eager in their perpetration. The punishment of 
Flavus was intrusted to Ve-ia'ni-us Niger, a tribune. At his direction, 
a pit was dug in a neighboring field. Flavus, on seeing it, censm-ed it 
as too shallow and confined, saying to the soldiers around him, "Even 
this is not according to military rule." When bidden to offer his neck 
resolutely, " I wish," said he, "that your stroke may be as resolute." 
The tribune trembled greatly, and having only just severed his head at 
two blows, vaunted his brutality to Nero, saying that he had slain him 
with a blow and a half. 

The opportunity seemed favorable to Nero for clearing off 
at once the score of his personal hatreds. Ves-ti 'nus, the 



ii2 College Latin Course in English. 



consul, could not be brought under any show of suspicion. 
But the emperor hated him as a boon companion "who often 
bantered him with that rough humor which [an observation 
showing the historian wise in human nature], when it draws 
largely on facts, leaves a bitter memory behind it." Nero 
used his imperial reserve of outright and peremptory despot- 
ism, for the destruction of Vestinus. The soldiers came upon 
the consul in the midst of a banquet, at which he was enter- 
taining friends in his own house. The tribune announced his 
sentence. Now Tacitus : 

He rose without a moment's delay, and every preparation was at once 
made. He shut himself into his chamber; a physician was at his side ; 
his veins were opened ; with life still strong in him, he was carried into 
a bath, and plunged into warm water, without uttering a word of pity for 
himself. Meanwhile the guards surrounded those who had sat at his 
table, and it was only at a late hour of the night that they were dis- 
missed, when Nero, having pictured to himself and laughed over their 
terror at the expectation of a fatal end to their banquet, said that they 
had suffered enough punishment for their consul's entertainment. 

The poet Lucan, author of the " Pharsalia," an epic poem 
on the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, was another 
victim. He died at twenty-seven years of age, with theatric 
circumstance well befitting the type of his genius. Tacitus : 

As the blood flowed freely from him, and he felt a chill creeping 
through his feet and hands, and the life gradually ebbing from his ex- 
tremities, though the heart was still warm and he retained his mental 
power, Lu-ca'nus recalled some poetry he had composed in which he had 
told the story of a wounded soldier dying a similar kind of death, and 
he recited the very lines. These were his last words. 

Exactly what lines they were that Lucan, dying, tragically 
repeated, is not known. Two different passages are pointed 
out as likely, either one of them, to have been declaimed on 
the occasion. We give them both. They will serve very well 
to indicate the quality of Lucan 's ambitious poem. The trans- 
lator, Nicholas Rowe, has, by the turgid swell of his English 



Tacitus. 113 



heroics, been true to the grandiose style of his original. The 
celebrated English essayist, John Foster, was an admirer of 
Lucan. In his essay on the Aversion of Men of Taste to 
Evangelical Religion, he has some very striking incidental 
remarks, appreciating what he felt to be the moral elevation 
and the eloquent poetry of this gifted young Roman. Lucan 
was a nephew of the philosopher Seneca. 

The first of the two passages to be given occurs in the 
third book of the "Pharsalia." It describes an incident repre- 
sented as taking place in the sea-fight before Marseilles, 
Caesar laying siege to that city : 

On Lycidas a steely grappling struck ; 
Struggling he drags with the tenacious hook, 
And deep had drowned beneath the greedy wave, 
But that his fellows strove their mate to save ; 
Clung to his legs, they clasp him all they can, 
The grappling tugs, asunder flies the man. 
No single wound the gaping rupture seems, 
Where trickling crimson wells in slender streams ; 
But from an opening horrible and wide 
A thousand vessels pour the bursting tide : 
At once the winding channel's course was broke, 
Where wandering life her mazy journey took ; 
At once the currents all forgot their way, 
And lost their purple in the azure sea. 
Soon from the lower parts the spirits fled, 
And motionless the exhausted limbs lay dead : 
Not so the nobler regions, where the heart, 
And heaving lungs, their vital powers exert ; 
There lingering late, and long-conflicting, life 
Rose against fate, and still maintained the strife : 
Driven out at length, unwillingly and slow, 
She left her mortal house, and sought the shades below. 

The last eight lines foregoing certainly make a very good 
match with Lucan's case as described by Tacitus. There 
can, we think, be little doubt that this was the identical pas- 
sage recited. 






ii4 College Latin Course in English. 

The second (less likely) passage is found in the ninth book. 
The war had now gone into Africa. Some lines here, in the 
original text, are of doubtful meaning. Rowe chooses a cer- 
tain sense, and gives that without question. We begin our 
own quotation far enough back to include an interesting 
reference to luxurious practices observed at Rome in the 
displays of the amphitheatre: 

But fertile Lib'y-a still new plagues supplies, 
And to more horrid monsters turns their eyes, 
Deeply the fierce Hoemor'rho-is impressed 
Her fatal teeth on Tullus' valiant breast, 
The noble youth, with virtue's love inspired, 
Her, in her Cato, followed and admired ; 
Moved by his great example, vowed to share 
With him, each change of that disastrous war. 
And as when mighty Rome's spectators meet 
In the full theater's capacious seat, 
At once, by secret pipes and channels fed, 
Rich tinctures gush from every antique head ; 
At once ten thousand saffron currents flow, 
And rain their odors on the crowd below : 
So the warm blood at once from every part 
Ran purple poison down and drained the fainting heart. 
Blood falls for tears, and o'er his mournful face 
The ruddy drops their tainted passage trace : 
Where'er the liquid juices find a way 
There streams of blood, there crimson rivers stray ; 
His mouth and gushing nostrils pour a flood ; 
And ev'n the pores ooze out the trickling blood; 
In the red deluge all the parts lie drowned, 
And the whole body seems one bleeding wound. 

Lucan, if he had lived longer, and if he had fallen on 
days more propitious to poetical achievement, might perhaps, 
outgrowing the faults of his youth, have conquered for him- 
self a place among the greatest poets of Rome. We have 
been glad to present, in passing, some slight hint at least — 
hint, comparatively speaking, sufficient — of. what work he 



Tacitus. T15 



could do while he was still a very young man. Lucan is 
seldom or never studied in the school or college class-room. 

The abjectness of Rome amid this carnival of blood 
passes belief. " One after another," so Tacitus relates, " on 
the destruction of a brother, a kinsman, or a friend, would 
return thanks to the gods, deck his house with laurels, pros- 
trate himself at the knees of the emperor, and weary his 
hand with kisses." 

The rewards distributed by the emperor to informers and 
favorites were on a scale commensurate with the magnitude 
of the cruelties wreaked on the victims of imperial hatred or 
imperial suspicion. Every common soldier received a pres- 
ent of nearly a hundred dollars in money, together with his 
rations of grain. 

Nero had established, after a fashion of the Greeks, a quin- 
quennial contest of eloquence and song. The occasion was 
now approaching. The senate hoped to forestall the em- 
peror's disgraceful exhibition of himself as competitor, by 
decreeing to him, in advance of the festival, the palm of 
victory in both music and oratory. Let Tacitus tell how 
well they succeeded : 

Nero, however, repeatedly declared that he wanted neither favor nor 
the Senate's influence, as he was a match for his rivals, and was certain, 
in the conscientious opinion of the judges, to win the honor by merit. 
First, he recited a poem on the stage ; then, at the importunate request 
of the rabble that he would make public property of all his accomplish- 
ments (these were their words), he entered the theater, and conformed 
to all the laws of harp-playing, not sitting down when tired, nor wiping 
off the perspiration with any thing but the garment he wore, or letting 
himself be seen to spit or clear his nostrils. Last of all, on bended knee, 
he saluted the assembly with a motion of the hand, and awaited the 
verdict of the judges with pretended anxiety. And then the city pop- 
ulace, who were wont to encourage every gesture even of actors, made 
the place ring with measured strains of elaborate applause. One would 
have thought they were rejoicing, and perhaps they did rejoice, in their 
indifference to the public disgrace. 

All, however, who were present from remote towns, and still retained 



n6 College Latin Course in English. 

the Italy of strict morals and primitive ways ; all too who had come on 
embassies or on private business from distant provinces, where they 
had been unused to such wantonness, were unable to endure the spec- 
tacle or sustain the degrading fatigue, which wearied their un- 
practiced hands, while they disturbed those who knew their part, and 
were often struck by soldiers, stationed in the seats, to see that 
not a moment of time passed with less vigorous applause or in the silence 
of indifference. It was a known fact that several knights, in struggling 
through the narrow approaches and the pressure of 
the crowd, were trampled to death, and that others 
while keeping their seats day and night were seized 
with some fatal malady. For it was still worse danger 
to be absent from the show, as many openly and 
many more secretly made it their business to scru- 
tinize names and faces, and to note the delight or the 
disgust of the company. Hence came cruel severi- 
ties, immediately exercised on the humble, and re- 
sentments, concealed for the moment, but subse- 
quently paid off, toward men of distinction. There 
was a story that Ves-pa'sian was insulted by Phoebus, 
a freedman, for closing his eyes in a doze, and that 
vespasian. having with difficulty been screened by the interces- 

sions of the well disposed, he escaped imminent destruction through his 
grander destiny. 

The " grander destiny " awaiting Vespasian was, in due 
time, to be emperor. The games over, " Poppaea died," so 
Tacitus relates, " from a casual outburst of rage in her hus- 
band, who felled her with a kick when she was pregnant.'* 
Nero eulogized her publicly from the rostra. 

We break into the gloomy catalogue of imperial crimes 
recounted by Tacitus, to give the story, surpassing in trag- 
edy, of the threefold associate death of Lucius Vetus, of 
Sextia, his mother-in-law, and of Poliutia, his daughter. Pol- 
lutia was the widow of a man formerly murdered by Nero. 
She interceded in vain with the emperor on her father's 
behalf. Tacitus says : 

He was at the same time informed that judicial proceedings in the 
Senate and a dreadful sentence were hanging over him. Some there 




Tacitus. 117 



were who advised him to name the emperor as his chief heir, and so 
secure the remainder for his grandchildren. But he spurned the notion, 
and unwilling to disgrace a life which had clung to freedom by a final 
act of servility, he bestowed on his slaves all his ready money, and 
ordered each to convey away for himself whatever he could carry, 
leaving only three couches for the last scene. Then in the same cham- 
ber, with the same weapon, they sundered their veins, and speedily 
hurried into a bath, covered each, as delicacy required, with a single 
garment, the father gazing intently on his daughter, the grandmother 
on her grandchild, she again on both, while with rival earnestness they 
prayed that the ebbing life might have a quick departure, each wishing 
to leave a relative still surviving, but just on the verge of death. For- 
tune preserved the due order ; the oldest died first, then the others ac- 
cording to priority of age. They were prosecuted after their burial, and 
the sentence was that " they should be punished in ancient fashion." 
Nero interposed his veto, allowing them to die without his interference. 
Such were the mockeries added to murders already perpetrated. 

Storms accompanied, and pestilence, to signalize, more 
gloomily still, this year of shameful human deeds. Tacitus 
interrupts himself, amid his narrative of horrible things, to 
say : 

Even if I had to relate foreign wars and deaths encountered in the 
service of the State with such a monotony of disaster, I should myself 
have been overcome by disgust, while I should look for weariness in my 
readers, sickened as they would be by the melancholy and continuous 
destruction of our citizens, however glorious to themselves. But now a 
servile submissiveness and so much wanton bloodshed at home fatigue 
the mind and paralyze it with grief. The only indulgence I would ask 
from those who will acquaint themselves with these horrors is, that I be 
not thought to hate men who perished so tamely. Such was the wrath 
of heaven against the Roman State that one may not pass over it with 
a single mention, as one might the defeat of armies and the capture of 
cities. Let us grant this privilege to the posterity of illustrious men, 
that just as in their funeral obsequies such men are not confounded in a 
common burial, so in the record of their end they may receive and retain 
a special memorial. 

A singular case of gay and gallant greeting to compulsory 
death occurred — without mention of which, our picture of the 



n8 College Latin Course in English. 

time would want something of proper contrast to make it 
complete. Of this incident, Caius Pe-tro'ni-us was the hero. 
A certain literary interest attaches to the name of Petronius. 
He was putative author of a phrase that is one of the most 
familiar commonplaces of literature — "curious felicity," as it 
is transferred, rather than translated, from the original Latin, 
curiosa felicitas. The words thus combined were meant to 
express the idea of that perfection in phrase which is the 
result of great care, joined to excellent good luck, in the 
choice of language to match your thought. Tacitus says : 

With regard to Caius Petronius, T ought to dwell a little on his ante- 
cedents. His days he passed in sleep, his nights in the business and 
pleasures of life. Indolence had raised him to fame, as energy raises 
others, and he was reckoned not a debauchee and spendthrift, like most 
of those who squander their substance, but a man of refined luxury. 
And indeed his talk and his doings, the freer they were and the more 
show of carelessness they exhibited, were the better liked, for their look 
of a natural simplicity. Yet as proconsul of Bithynia, and soon after- 
ward as consul, he showed himself a man of vigor and equal to business. 
Then falling back into vice, or affecting vice, he was chosen by Nero to 
be one of his few intimate associates, as a critic in matters of taste, 
while the emperor thought nothing charming or elegant in luxury unless 
Petronius had expressed to him his approval of it. Hence jealousy on 
the part of Tigellinus, who looked on him as a rival and even his supe- 
rior in the science of pleasure. And so he worked on the prince's cru- 
elty, which dominated every other passion, charging Petronius with 
having been the friend of Scae-vi'nus, bribing a slave to become inform- 
er, robbing him of the means of defense, and hurrying into prison the 
greater part of his domestics. 

It happened at the time that the emperor was on his way to Campania, 
and that Petronius, after going as far as Cumae, was there detained. 
He bore no longer the suspense of fear or hope. Yet he did not fling 
away life with precipitate haste, but having made an incision in his veins 
and then, according to his humor, bound them up, he again opened them, 
while he conversed with his friends, not in a serious strain or on topics 
that might win for him the glory of courage. And he listened to them 
as they repeated, not thoughts on the immortality of the soul or on the 
theories of philosophers, but light poetry and playful verses. To some 
of his slaves he gave liberal presents, a flogging to others. He dined, 



Tacitus. 119 



indulged himself in sleep, that death, though forced on him, might have 
a natural appearance. Even in his will he did not, as did many in their 
last moments, flatter Nero or Tigellinus or any other of the men in power. 
On the contrary, he described fully the prince's shameful excesses, with 
the names of his male and female companions and their novelties in 
debauchery, and sent the account under seal to Nero. Then he broke his 
signet-ring, that it might not be subsequently available for impei'iling 
others. 

One cannot help indulging a transient admiration of some- 
thing in the dying of this Roman exquisite, of an evil time, 
that goes toward redeeming the ignoble of his life. 

Thrasea is almost as much the chosen historical favorite of 
Tacitus, as William of Orange notoriously was of Macaulay. 
Now comes the story of the end of this " noblest Roman of 
them all." The historian begins it with this impressive 
preface : " Nero, after having butchered so many illustrious 
men, at last aspired to extirpate virtue itself by murdering 
Thrasea Psetus and Ba-re'a So-ra nus." 

An officious informer charged Thrasea to the emperor, in 
a strain of which the following may serve as a specimen. 
Tacitus : 

" The country, in its eagerness for discord is now talking of you, Nero, 
and of Thrasea, as it talked once of Caius Caesar and Marcus Cato. 
Thrasea has his followers or rather his satellites, who copy, not indeed 
as yet the audacious tone of his sentiments, but only his manners and 
his looks, a sour and gloomy set, bent on making your mirthfulness a 
reproach to you. He is the only man who cares not for your safety, 
honors not your accomplishments. The prince's prosperity he despises. 
Can it be that he is not satisfied with your sorrows and griefs ? It 
shows the same spirit not to believe in Poppaea's divinity as to refuse 
to swear obedience to the acts of the divine Augustus and the divine 
Julius." 

"All Rome," Tacitus says, rushed out on a certain occa- 
sion of imperial display, to do honor to the emperor, but 
Thrasea was ominously forbidden to appear. Thrasea, un- 
dismayed, wrote a firm letter to Nero demanding to know the 



College Latin Course in English. 



charges brought against him. The coward emperor re- 
sponded by summoning his subservient senate. Now Tacitus : 

Thrasea then consulted his most intimate friends whether he should 
attempt or spurn defense. Conflicting advice was offered. Those who 
thought it best for him to enter the senate-house said that they counted 
confidently on his courage, and were sure that he would say nothing but 
what would heighten his renown. . . . 

Those, on the other hand, who thought that he ought to wait at home, 
though their opinion of him was the same, hinted that mockeries and 
insults were in store for him. . . . 

Present at this deliberation was Rusticus Ar-u-le'nus, an enthusiastic 
youth, who, in his ardor for renown, offered, as he was tribune of the 
people, to protest against the sentence of the Senate. Thrasea checked 
his impetuous temper, not wishing him to attempt what would be as 
futile and useless to the accused, as it would be fatal to the protester. 
" My days," he said, " are ended, and I must not now abandon a scheme 
of life in which for so many years I have persevered. You are at the 
beginning of a career of office, and your future is yet clear. Weigh thor- 
oughly with^yourself beforehand, at such a crisis as this, the path of 
political life on which you enter." He then reserved for his own consid- 
eration the question whether it became him to enter the Senate. 

The senate listened to an address from the emperor, read 
by his qusestor. The cue supplied in this address was ea- 
gerly caught up by the emperor's senatorial flatterers. There 
followed fierce servility of invective against the two im- 
pleaded men. The conclusion was foregone. Tacitus 
pregnantly says, " Thrasea, Soranus, and Servilia [daughter 
to Soranus] were allowed the choice of death." How 
Thrasea died is thus related by Tacitus : 

As evening approached, the consul's quaestor was sent to Thrasea, 
who was passing his time in his garden. He had had a crowded gather- 
ing of distinguished men and women, giving special attention to Deme- 
trius, a professor of the Cynic philosophy. With him, as might be in- 
ferred from his earnest expression of face and from words heard when 
they raised their voices, he was speculating on the nature of the soul 
and on the separation of the spirit from the body, till Domitius Cae'cil- 
i-a'nus, one of his intimate friends, came to him and told him in detail 
what the Senate had decided. When all who were present wept and 



Tacitus. 



121 



bitterly complained, Thrasea urged them to hasten their departure and 
not mingle their own perils with the fate of a doomed man. Arria too 
who aspired to follow her husband's end and the example of Arria, her 
mother, he counseled to preserve her life, and not rob the daughter of 
their love of her only stay. 

Then he went out into a colonnade, where he was found by the 
quaestor, joyful rather than otherwise, as he had learned that Hel- 
vid'i-us, his son-in-law, was merely excluded from Italy. When he 
heard the Senate's decision, he led Helvidius and Demetrius into a 
chamber, and having laid bare the arteries of each arm, he let the 
blood flow freely, and, as he sprinkled it on the ground, he called the 
quaestor to his side and said : " We pour out a libation to Jupiter the 
Deliverer. Behold, young man, and may the gods avert the omen, but 
you have been born into times in which it is well to fortify the spirit 
with examples of courage." Then as the slowness of his end brought 
with it grievous anguish, turning his eyes on Demetrius. . . . 

The "Annals " of Tacitus, as they exist to moderns, end ab- 
ruptly thus, on a sentence unfinished, with Thrasea in the 
unfinished act of dying. The rest of Nero's 
reign, a period of two years, we lose from the 
incomparable record of Tacitus. That living 
bulwark of the empire, Corbulo, fell a victim 
to the jealousy of the emperor, being met at 
Corinth on his return from the East with the 
imperial sentence to suicide. In A. D. 68, 
Nero, risen against 
by his subjects, and himself now 
under sentence of death from the 
senate, died wretchedly at last by 
his own hand. 

A Rome how different from the 
Rome of Livy, is the Rome that 
Tacitus describes ! But the degen- 
eracy, so great, of later Rome was, 
after all, only a ripeness in the fruit, 
of a disease that lurked from the 





CORBULO. 



NERO. 



first in the heart of the flower. 
6 



122 College Latin Course in English. 



III. 

PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. 

The national history which, in the pages preceding, we 
have, by description and specimen, presented, may be con- 
sidered to constitute in some sense a portrait of Rome drawn 
by her own hand. Of this great picture, a few leading feat- 
ures at least now lie under the eyes of our readers. 

But Latin history is not the only autograph portrait that 
the Roman people drew, and transmitted to succeeding 
times. The serious and severe Roman genius had its fits of 
turning aside, in literature, from heroic historical portraying 
of itself, to indulge also in huniorsome and rallying delinea- 
tion of the national life and manners. There was Roman com- 
edy as well as Roman history. The intent and intense qual- 
ity of the Roman character might seem likely to have turned 
the literary mind of the nation naturally toward the produc- 
tion of tragedy. But the Roman spirit, while perhaps suffi- 
ciently theatric, was, if we may make such a distinction in 
words, very little dramatic. The drama never enjoyed a 
greatly flourishing existence at Rome. And as for tragedy, 
nothing in this kind really considerable was ever created or 
imported by the Romans. Their history itself, as it grew 
from year to year under their eyes, was perhaps a full con- 
tentment to their desire for scenic representation. That his- 
tory formed, indeed, for them, as for all mankind, a con- 
tinuous spectacular tragedy, at once exhibited and beheld 
by themselves, with the whole world for theater, and with 
nations for actors — Rome always herself the mighty pro- 
tagonist in every act and in every scene of the ever-unfolding 
drama. Rome might well dispense with using her left hand 
to write tragedy, while she was incessantly so busy making 
tragedy with her right hand. 



Plautus and Terence. 123 

Scipio (Scipio Africanus Minor, not the conqueror of 
Hannibal, but the destroyer of Carthage) gave the weight of 
his example and influence to encourage Greek studies at 
Rome ; and especially to encourage the importation and 
domestication among his countrymen, of the comedy of 
Greek Menander and of his compatriot fellows in authorship. 
It was even reported that this stately and aristocratic patri- 
cian had deigned to write Roman comedy himself, letting 
his production appear under the name of Terence as author. 
But, in the history of comedy at Rome, a little earlier than 
Terence, came Plautus. Plautus created the wake in which 
Terence, coming close after him, found it comparatively easy 
to follow. 

We put Plautus and Terence together in treatment, both 
because we have not room to treat them separately, and be- 
cause they are naturally associated, as being to us the two sole 
surviving representatives of the ancient Roman drama. Plau- 
tus, as we have said, was the elder. Plautus, in fact, is the 
very eldest Roman writer known to moderns by any complete 
work remaining from his hand. He was not many years 
before Terence ; but Terence, by something more modern in 
his manner, seems two or three literary generations nearer to 
our time. 

Plautus as well as Terence borrowed freely from the 
Greek. By a curious fortune in survival, the Greek Menan- 
der lives now only, or almost only, in the reproductions of 
his works proceeding from these two Roman borrowers. 
Menander was a very different writer of comedy from Aristo- 
phanes. The colossal drollery, the personal hard-hitting., 
the illimitable freedom, of Aristophanes, were in Menander 
exchanged for something much nearer to that decent rail- 
lery at current morals and manners which is the prevail- 
ing character of modern comedy. The " New Comedy," 
Menander's school was called, to distinguish it from the 
school of Aristophanes, which was called the/ "Old," in con- 



124 College Latin Course in English. 

trast. We have in part to guess how much Plautus and 
Terence owed to Menander. It seems clear that, as be- 
tween the two, Plautus contributed more than did Terence, 
of the personal, and more, likewise, of the national, element, 
to qualify his adaptations from the Greek. In both cases 
alike, however, the result is a mixed product, rather puzzling 
to our natural sense of fitness and consistency. The Roman 
play had its scene laid somewhere in Hellas, the names of 
persons were chiefly Greek, the life represented was rather 
Greek than Roman; and yet Roman civil institutions and 
Roman traits of manners were introduced, quite as if the 
comic writer were unconscious of unkindly mixing things 
that differed ; or else as if this very mixing itself were trusted 
to by him for enhancing his comic effect. Probably both 
writer and spectator were sufficiently uncritical, neither, on 
the one hand, to be disturbed by the incongruity, nor, on the 
other hand, distinctly to enjoy the incongruity, as an element 
of humor. We know from Terence that his audience was 
difficult ; but it was by no means to their being over-critical 
that the difficulty of his audience was due. Quite to the con- 
trary. They were childish and frisky to a degree. Terence, 
in one of his comedies, begs his audience to give him a chance 
with them. They had, it would seem, those half-civilized 
Romans, a reprehensible habit of flinging out of the play- 
house upon occasion, in the midst of the play — if, for example, 
they happened to hear the sound outside of any thing going 
forward (boxing, it might be, rope-dancing, a gladiatorial 
show, a procession in the street) that promised diversion at 
less cost to them of brain than the comedy in progress re- 
quired. So the comedist of Terence's time had his trials. 

Plautus was of the people. Terence was cultivated some- 
what away from the people. There is a considerably stronger 
smack of real Roman character and life in Plautus than in 
Terence. Plautus lived to old age, and produced a good 
many plays. Terence died young, and brought out only six 



Plautus and Terence. 125 

plays in all. Plautus bad to work for his daily bread. Ter- 
ence became the favorite of the great and lived very much 
at his ease. Neither poet was native Roman. Plautus was 
of the district of Umbria, in Italy. Terence is said to have 
been a Carthaginian. Plautus is a nickname, meaning " flat- 
foot." The name Terence — Te-ren'tius is the Latin form — 
was probably given to the bearer from the name of his patron, 
the Roman patrician that freed him. For Terence was either 
born slave, or else had become slave by fortune of war. 
Titus Mac'ci-us Plautus was the full name of the one — Pub- 
lius Terentius A'fer [African] of the other. 

Plautus was a natural dramatist. He is full of movement 
and life. There is in his comedies an incessant bustle of 
change going forward. Every thing is spectacle with Plautus. 
He does not rest to moralize or reflect. True, progress is 
not uniformly made toward the end to be reached. But 
though the plot may stand still, the play does not. There 
is at least activity, if there is no action. Your attention is 
never suffered for a moment to flag. 

Terence, on the other hand, depends more upon what the 
eye cannot see. There is an element of reflection introduced. 
Terence, herein, as we guess, more nicely responds, than does 
Plautus, to the genius and method of their common Greek 
original, Menander. Both writers are sufficiently coarse; 
but Plautus, as more Roman, is coarser than Terence. 
Neither seems to care for any moral lesson to be enforced. 
Each seeks to amuse, not at all to amend, his audience. 
There can be little doubt that the practical tendency of both 
alike was to deprave the moral tone of Roman character. The 
influence exerted for bane by such importations from Greece 
as Plautus and Terence purveyed for the amusement of 
Rome, may be likened to the influence exerted by licentious 
French ballets and licentious French operas, working, through 
English adaptations, to debauch the taste and morals of 
England or America. It was an evil hour for Rome, when 



*26 College Latin Course in English. 

she began to be accustomed to see reverend old age flouted 
in the comic theater, and to laugh there at trickeries and 
knaveries, practiced at the expense of every thing that was 
holy in home life and in the conjugal relation. It is a sad 
lesson in enlightened pagan manners, the lesson that we 
learn from Plautus and Terence. The canker is in them 
somewhat opened to view, that secretly worked beneath 
the gallant show of full-flowering Roman life and character. 

It is one of the traditions of the famous Westminster 
School, in England, to present annually, about Christmas time, 
some select Latin play. The tradition, indeed, is something 
more than mere tradition. The Westminster School is under 
ancient charter obligation to pay such tribute to the Roman 
comedy. For these classic entertainments, Terence is the 
favorite source of supply. 

Animated, perhaps, by the English example, the students of 
the University of Michigan, two or three years ago, presented, 
with much circumstance, and with success to correspond, a 
play of Terence, in his original Latin. The lady students of 
Washington University, in St. Louis, were not to be outdone. 
They followed almost immediately with a play of Plautus. 
Going beyond their peers at Ann Arbor, these ladies took 
the trouble to make a translation into English prose of 
Plautus's text, and furnished this in a libretto for the conven- 
ience of such spectators of the play as might chance to have 
grown rusty in their familiarity with comic Latin. It ought 
to be said that, as might properly be expected, the diction, 
and, to some extent, the syntax, of Latin comedy, differ from 
the standard of classic prose. We have in the comedy more 
familiarity, more idiom, more conversational slipshod. This 
character in their original, the St. Louis translators repro- 
duced in their version. (The verse of Latin comedy is not 
dactylic, but iambic, with trochees intermingled — a free and 
easy meter suited to the use to which it was put. Archaic 
forms are frequent.) 



Plautus and Terence. 127 

We are limited in our choice from among the works of 
Plautus and Terence, by the inseparable moral character of 
their comedies. Hardly, indeed, could any single play out of 
the whole number be presented here entire. We must use 
care in choosing, and then we must also expurgate with care. 
On the whole, we shall go pretty safely, if, for Plautus, we 
take the play selected by the young ladies'of Washington 
University. This is "Rudens," or "The Shipwreck," as the 
name sometimes is given. Rudens means "rope." A fish- 
erman's rope plays an important part in the action. A 
violent tempest at sea occurs, whence the title " Shipwreck." 
One almost ventures to be reminded of The Tempest, of 
Shakespeare. 

Plautus usually began his plays with a prologue. The 
idea of the prologue, with him, was to explain somewhat be- 
forehand to spectators the plot of the play. The prologue 
of Rudens is, in distinction from the body of the play, versi- 
fied by the young ladies of Washington University. Con- 
sidered as translation, their verse is very free ; but it is spir- 
ited. The translators, through the whole comedy, abridge 
their original. Their form of the prologue we give entire; 
it will be found to serve its explanatory purpose very well. 
(By permission, we use the Washington University transla- 
tion, throughout the play.) 

The speaker of the prologue is Arc-tu'rus, a star, supposed 
to bode wind and storm. Probably the actor who personated 
Arcturus displayed a decoration in the. form of a brilliant star. 
The appointments of the comic theater in Rome were simple 
and rude. In the time of Plautus and Terence, there was 
not even a permanent building devoted to theatric representa- 
tion. A wooden structure, hastily thrown together, and 
temporary in its design, was made to answer the purpose. 
Not until Pompey's time was there a durable theater of 
stone. Imagine, then, an actor designated and illustrated 
with a star, perhaps on his forehead, appearing before the 



128 College Latin Course in English. 



expectant audience, and, at the beginning of the representa- 
tion, delivering himself of the following prologue : 

Splendid and glowing, a subject am I 

Of the king of the bright constellations, 

Rising as pleases my own sovereign will, 

Both on earth arid above in the heavens. 

Nightly I shine in the clear azure sky, 

And there with celestials hold converse ; 

Daily 1 walk midst the dwellings of men, 

And am worshiped on earth as Arcturus. 

Now I will show you the reason I came, 

And will tell you the plot of this story. 

Diph'i-lus wished that the name of this town 

(To the right of you here) be Cyrene. 

Here in this villa o'erlooking the sea, 

Dwells one Daemones, exiled from Athens. 

Not on account of his own wicked deeds, 

But through services rendered to others, 

Lost he his fortune and lost he his home, 

And grows gray here in want and in sorrow. 

Once a young daughter had smoothed from his brow 

Every wrinkle that care might have wrought there ; 

She in her youth had been stolen away, 

And been sold to a wicked slave-dealer. 

Fate had ordained that the girl should be brought 

To this town near the home of her father. 

Here, while returning one day from her school, 

She was seen by the youth Ples-i-dip'pus ; 

Beauty and grace gave her wonderful charms, 

And in haste to her master he hurried, 

Purchased the girl for himself with bright gold, 

And bound with an oath the slave-dealer. 

This one, however, did shame to his trade, 

If he cared e'en a straw for his pledges. 

He had a guest, a Sicilian old man, 

Who had fled from his home, Ag-ri-gen'tum : 

This one declares that the place in the world, 

Which is best for his host and his business, 

Sicily, home of his youth and his crime, 

Is the market for slaves and slave-dealers. 



Plautus and Terence. 129 

Soon he obtains the vile master's consent, 

And they hire a ship, but in secret ; 

That which is needed by night they convey 

To the ship, and make ready for starting. 

Vows to the temple of Venus, he says 

To the youth, are the cause of his going. 

(This is the temple at which he pretends 

He is going to pay his devotions.) 

Thither he asks that the youth will soon come, 

And invites him to join him at breakfast. 

Others make clear to the youth what this means, 

That the scoundrel has only deceived him. 

He, when he comes to the harbor, perceives 

That the ship is quite lost in the distance. 

I, since I know that the girl has by fraud 

Been taken away from Cyrene, 

Raise a great storm that both brings her swift aid, 

And destruction at once to her master. 

He and his guest are thrown out by the waves, 

And barely escape death by swimming. 

She and a hand-maid leap into a skiff, 

And are driven ashore by the tempest, 

Here by the house of her father unknown, 

Whose tiling the storm- wind has injured. 

This is his slave who is just coming out, 

And the youth Plesidippus, the lover, 

Soon will appear. Fare you well, and be strong, 

That your enemies all may be vanquished. 

The " Argument " prefixed to the play is further helpful to 
the understanding of the dramatic design : 

" A fisherman drew up from the sea with his net a wallet, 
which contained the trinkets of his master's daughter, who, hav- 
ing been stolen in her youth, was now owned by a slave-dealer. 
Thrown ashore in a shipwreck, she came, without her knowl- 
edge, under the protection of her own father. She was rec- 
ognized and married to her lover, Ples-i-dip'pus." 

Sce-par'nio is a slave of Dae'mon-es. Dsemones is the 

man to whom the lost girl of the play will be restored, as 

his daughter. Sceparnio, with Daemones, stands on the 
6* 



130 College Latin Course in English. 

shore watching the fortunes of a skiff struggling in the surf. 
His description of what he sees is life-like. It is a very good 
specimen of dramatic vision. "What is it you see? "asks 
Dsemones. Sceparnio replies : 

Sccpamio. Two women seated alone in a skiff! Poor wretches! how 
they are tossed about ! Well done ! Well done ! First-rate ! The 
wave has turned the skiff from the rock toward the shore ! No pilot 
could have done better. [ never saw higher waves. They're all right, 
if they avoid those waves. Now ! now, look out ! See how one of them 
is thrown out ! But she's in shallow water. She will easily swim out. 
Well done ! She's ail right. She has got out of the water. Now she's 
on the shore. The other one has jumped from the skiff into the water. 
See her fall on her knees in the water ! There, she is up ! If she turns 
this way, she's safe. If she goes to the right, she'll be badly off ! She'll 
wander around to-day, I guess. 

Dcemones. What difference does it make to you, Sceparnio ? 

Sc. If she falls down from that rock whither she is going, she'll shorten 
her wandering. 

Dee. If you're going to dine with them to-day, Sceparnio, look after 
them, of course; but if you are going to eat with me, I wish you'd attend 
to me. 

Sc. That's only fair. 

Dee. Then follow me. 

Sc. All right. 

The cool indifference exhibited by the master Dsemones is 
well contrasted against the lively interest, of sympathy, or of 
curiosity, shown by the slave Sceparnio. If readers find pro- 
vincialisms in the English rendering, such provincialisms 
they may take to represent the unconventional freedom of 
the original Latin. 

The two women — one of whom is Pa-laes'tra, the lost 
daughter, still claimed by the slave-dealer La'brax as his 
property — finally get safe to land, but separately, each think- 
ing the other is drowned. The coming together of the two 
must have been a very amusing representation, as managed 
by the playwright and the scene-master between them. A 
ledge or cliff of rock kept the two women from seeing each 



Plautus and Terence. 131 

other, while still they could hear each the other's voice. 
The audience, meantime, could see both the two persons of 
the action. Each has been soliloquizing aloud, within hear- 
ing of the other — when Palaestra speaks : 

Palcestra. Whose voice sounds near me ? 

Ampelisca. I am afraid ; who is talking here? 

Pa. Good Hope, I beg you come to my aid. 

Am. It is a woman ; a woman's voice reaches my ears. Wont you free 
me, wretch that I am, from this dread ? 

Pa. Surely it's a woman's voice I hear. Is it Am-pe-hVca, pray? 

Am. Do I hear you, Palaestra? 

Pa. Why don't I call her by her name, so that she'll know me? Am- 
pelisca ! 

Am. Hem ! Who is it ? 

Pa. It is I. 

Am. Is that you, Palsestra? 

Pa. Yes. 

Am. Where are you ? 

Pa. By Pollux, in the greatest evil. 

Am. I'm no better off myself. But I long to see you. 

Pa. And I you. 

Am. Let's follow the voice with the footsteps. Where are you ? 

Pa. Here I am. Come this way. 

Am. I'm coming as well as I can. 

Pa. Give me your hand. 

Am. Here it is. 

Pa. Are you alive ? Speak, pray. 

Am. You make me want to live, now- that I have you. I can scarcely 
believe that I do have you. Embrace me, my love. How you relieve me 
of all my troubles. 

Pa. That was what I was going to say. 

The humor of the foregoing passage, of course, lies in the 
situation rather than in the dialogue. The success of it with 
an audience would depend upon the scenery and the acting. 
Still the merit of the conception — whatever that merit may 
be — belongs to the original inventor. Who the original in- 
ventor was, nobody knows. Perhaps Plautus himself, perhaps 
Menander, Diph'i-lus, or some other Greek now nameless. 



132 College Latin Course in English. 

The two girls make their way to a temple of Venus not 
far off, where they are kindly welcomed by the priestess. 

There are some gaps in the text of Plautus, and, besides 
this, the translators whom we follow, very judiciously make, 
as we have said, omissions here and there. The scene now 
to be given is on the border-line between proper and im- 
proper ; but it will afford an instructive hint of what Roman 
comedists purveyed for their audience. Ampelisca, Palaes- 
tra's companion in shipwreck and in hair-breadth escape, has 
been dispatched by the priestess of Venus to fetch water 
from the house of Daemones. She raps at the door and is 
answered by our friend the slave Sceparnio. 

Scepamio. Who's making such a racket at our door ? 

Ampelisca. I am. 

Sc. Ha! What good fortune is this? By Pollux, what a pretty woman ! 

Am. Good morning, young man. 

Sc. You're welcome, my lady. 

Am. I'm coming to your house. 

Sc. I'll receive you hospitably; but what do you want, my pretty one? 

Am. O, you're too familiar. {He chucks her under the chin.) 

Sc. Immortal gods ! she's the very image of Venus ! What lovely 
eyes ! What a.pretty figure ! She's quite dark — I mean to say, a hand- 
some brunette. 

Am. I'm no dish for the village. Take your hands off me ! 

Sc. Can't one touch you prettily, my pretty one ? 

Am. At another time I'll give you opportunity for a flirtation. Now 
I'd like you to say yes or no to the errand I'm sent on. 

Sc. What do you want ? 

Am. Any one with good sense would know by what I carry. 

Sc. And any one with good sense would know my errand by my attire. 

Am. The priestess of Venus told me to ask for water here. 

Sc. But I'm of royal descent, and wont give you a drop unless you 
beg me. We dug this well at our own risk and with our own tools. You 
wont get a drop from me without a great deal of coaxing. 

Am. Why are you so stingy with your water, which even an enemy 
gives an enemy? 

Sc. And why are you so stingy with your love, which a citizen gives a 
citizen ? 



Plautus and Terence. 133 

Am. Well, my darling, I'll Jo every thing you wish. 
Sc. Good ! I'm all right now ; she calls me her dailing. I'll give you 
water ; you sha'n't love me in vain ; give me your pitcher. 
Am. Take it. Hasten, pray, and bring it back. 
Sc. Wait ; I'll soon be back, my dear. {Exit Sceparino.) 

While Sceparnio is gone for the water — to Ampelisca's dis- 
may, Labrax, the slave- dealer, appears on the shore. Am- 
pelisca had thought he was happily drowned and out of the 
way. She runs off, and Sceparnio coming back finds her 
gone. He had been chuckling to himself over his luck in 
having a chance to flirt with Ampelisca. When he reap- 
pears with the water, he is speaking aloud : 

Sc. O, immortal gods ! I never believed there was so much pleasure in 
drawing water ; with how much delight I drew it. The well never 
seemed so shallow ; why, I got it up without a bit of trouble. 
Haven't I been a fool never to have fallen in love before ! Here's your 
water, my beauty. There, I want you to carry it off with as much pleasure 
as I bring it ; so that you may please me. But where are you, my dear? 
Take this water, if you please. Where are you ? I believe she's in love 
with me ! She's hiding. Where are you ? Wont you take this pitcher? 
Where are you? (Gets more earnest.) You play nicely, but now really 
be serious. Wont you take the pitcher? {Begins to get angry.) Where 
in the world are you? I don't see her anywhere ; by Hercules, she's mak- 
ing game of me ! {In a rage.) I'll put this pitcher right down in the 
middle of the road. {Starts off but comes back slowly, reflecting?) But 
what if some one should carry off this sacred urn of Venus? It might 
get me into trouble. By Hercules, I fear lest this woman has laid some 
plot that I may be caught with the sacred urn of Venus in my posses- 
sion. The officers would, very justly, make me die in prison, if any one 
should see me have this. {Examines it more closely.) For here's an in- 
scription on it ; this tells whose it is ! Now, by Hercules, I'll call the 
priestess of Venus out of doors to take the pitcher. {Goes up and knocks 
at the temple?) Halloo ! Ptol-e-mo-cra'tia ! If you please, come and take 
this pitcher. Some woman or other brought it to me. It must be car- 
ried in. (Aside.) I have found work enough, if I'm to cany water in to 
them. (Goes into the temple.) 

One can hear the roars of Roman laughter with which this 
scene would be greeted. The drollery is broad enough to 



134 College Latin Course in English. 

be appreciated by every body, as the acting would bring the 
points sharply out. 

There is a scene now between Labrax, the slave-dealer, 
and his friend Char ; mi-des. These worthies, having lost 
every thing, bemoan themselves and chide each other. 
Labrax had had a wallet that contained all his valuables. 
This is gone now, and the two pretty slave-girls are gone. 
Labrax is wretched. Slave-dealer we have called this fel- 
low, but he in truth was slave-dealer of a particular sort, a 
sort especially infamous even with the ancients. He was a 
procurer. 

Sceparnio, coming out of the temple, meets Labrax and 
Charmides. There is some racy talk between him and them, 
in which Sceparnio vents his - ill-humor amusingly at their 
expense. But he lets out the secret that Labrax's slave-girls 
are in sanctuary within. 

We have thus got through two acts of the comedy. The 
third act introduces another set of characters. Plesidip- 
pus, Palaestra's lover, a young Athenian, appears upon the 
scene — first, however, by proxy, in the person of his con- 
fidential slave Tra-cha'lio. Trachalio raises an uproarious 
hue and cry in the street. Cyrenians all are adjured to ren- 
der help. The incoherent alarum of his outcry engages the 
attention of Daemones. Very diverting is the back and forth 
between these two, while Daemones tries to learn from Tra- 
chalio what the pother is all about. The upshot is that sev- 
eral slaves of Daemones rush into the temple to rescue the 
girls and to thrash Labrax. The sound of this is heard out- 
side. The girls meantime issue from the temple and Tra- 
chalio seeks to reassure them. There follows a long scene 
of brisk dialogue, with Daemones, Trachalio, and Labrax for 
interlocutors. It is a triangular contest of menace, abuse, 
and braggadocio. The frank brutality of it would no doubt 
be highly refreshing to the groundlings of the ancient comic 
theater. The flavor is rich and strong. Of course, Labrax 



Plant us ajul Terence. 135 

has, on the whole, the worst of it. He gives up getting his 
slave property by force. 

Plesidippus is now at hand in person. Labrax, in vain 
imploring help, spurned as he is from every quarter, is 
dragged off to be tried for fraud committed by him in taking 
earnest-money from Plesidippus for Palaestra, and then run- 
ning off with her to sea. The lively dialogue through which 
the foregoing result is reached, brings out contrasted character 
admirably. Plautus is a true dramatist. 

The fourth act hints the approaching denouement. Gripus, 
fisherman, makes his appearance. Gripus has fished up La- 
brax's lost wallet with its valuable contents. This wallet 
will turn out to contain the keepsake trinkets proving 
Palaestra the long-lost daughter of Daemones. Gripus is in 
the act of hiding his treasure-trove, all the while purring 
aloud to himself over his good luck, when Trachalio comes 
up. There is an amusing confabulation between the two 
men, too long drawn out for us to print here, but animated 
and very racy of character. The result is that Trachalio, 
having caught sight of Gripus's find, succeeds, by dint of 
threat and persistency, in getting that fisherman to submit 
\he question of ownership in the wallet to Daemones, as con- 
venient arbiter. Gripus is well content to have it so — Dae- 
mones, although the other does not know this, being Gripus's 
indulgent master. The scene that ensues, when the matter 
is referred to Daemones, has interest enough, both of dra- 
matic dialogue and of dramatic development, to be shown 
our readers. It will very well illustrate the lively bustle of 
movement that fills a comedy of Plautus. The cruel relation 
of master and slave has a grateful relief — probably true to 
many instances of real life — in the representation of Gripus's 
freedom of manner with Daemones. The kindliness happily 
then as now inborn in some natures, was not always quite 
spoiled by the evil influence of despotic power, such as the 
master possessed over his slave. 



I $6 College Latin Course in English. 

Dsemones is just answering the appeal of the shipwrecked 
girls, as the fourth scene of the fourth act opens. At the 
self-same moment, the contestants, Gripus and Trachalio, 
arrive. It is a duel between these two, which of them shall 
get the ear of Daemones. Now the text of the play, con- 
densed : 

Gr. Hail, master! 

Dee. Hail, what's going on? 

Tr. Is this fellow your slave ? 

Gr. He's not ashamed of it. 

Tr. I'm not talking to you. 

Gr. Then go away from here, I beg. 

Tr. Pray, answer, old gentleman, is this your slave? 

Dee. He is. 

Gr. Really, if you had any shame, you'd go away from here. 

Dee. Gripus, pay attention, and be silent. 

Gr. And he speak first ? 

Dee. {To Gripus) Listen. {To Trachalio) You speak. 

Gr. Will you let another's slave speak before your own ? 

Tr. Pshaw ! how hard it is to check that fellow. As I began to 
say, this one has the wallet of the slave-dealer whom you thrust out of 
the temple of Venus a short time ago. 

Gr. If I caught it in the sea with my net, how is it more yours than 
mine ? 

Tr. Until the first speaker gets through, silence this fellow,, pray, if 
he's yours. 

Gr. What, you wish that inflicted on me which your master is accus- 
tomed to administer to you ? If he's used to checking you that way, 
not so my master. 

Dee. He's got ahead of you in that speech. W T hat do you want now? 
Tell me. 

Tr. There is in that wallet a little casket belonging to this woman, 
who, I lately said, had been free. . . . Those trinkets, which she had long 
ago as a child, are in the casket. That slave of yours has no use for 
this, and it will afford help to that wretched girl, if he will give her that 
by which she may find her parents. 

Dee. I'll make him give it up ; be quiet. 

Gr. By Hercules, I'm not going to give any thing to him. 

Tr. I demand nothing but the casket and the trinkets. 



Plautus and Terence. 137 

Gr. What, if these are golden ? 

Tr. Wliat is that to you ? Gold will be given for gold, silver for silver. 

Gr. Let me see the gold ; then I'll let you see the casket. 

Dee. (To Grip us) Take care and hold your tongue. (To Trachalio) 
You proceed as you began. 

Tr. I ask of you one thing, that you pity this woman, if this is the 
wallet of that slave-dealer, as I suspect. I do not affirm this as a cer- 
tainty, but I think it is. 

Gr. Do you see how the villain is laying his snares? 

Tr. Permit me to speak, as I began. If this wallet belongs to that 
rascal whom I have named, the articles can be identified ; order him to 
show them to these girls. 

Gr. What do you say ? To show them ? 

Dee. He asks but what is just — that the wallet be shown. 

Gr. Nay, by Hercules, it is flagrantly unjust. 

Dee. Why, pray ? 

Gr. Because, if I show it, straightway they will declare that they rec- 
ognize it. 

Tr. Source of villainy, do you judge all men by yourself? Fount of 
perjury ! 

Gr. I can grin and bear your abuse, if only my master sides with me. 

Tr. But now he's on the other side ; he will get the truth out of the 
wallet. 

Dee. (To Gripus) Gripus, pay attention. (To Trachalio) State 
briefly what you want. 

Tr. I have said truly ; but if you didn't understand I'll say it again. 
Both of these girls, as I said a short time ago, ought to be free. This 
maiden, when a child, was stolen from Athens. 

Gr. May Jupiter and the gods destroy you ! What are you saying, 
hangman ? What, are those girls dumb, that they can't speak for them- 
selves ? . . . (To Deemones) Pray, am I to talk at all to-day ? 

D<z. If you say one word more, I'll break your head. 

Tr. As I began to say, old gentleman, I beg you would order this 
slave to return the casket to them. If he asks any reward for this, it 
shall be given. Whatever else there is in it he can have for himself. 

Gr. Now, at length, you say that, since you see it is my right. A 
while ago you claimed half. 

Dee. Can't I check you without a beating ? 

Gr. If he is silent, I will be silent ; if he speaks, let me speak in my 
own behalf. 



138 College Latin Course in English. 

Dee. Give me now the wallet, Gripus. 

Gr. I will trust it to you, but on the condition that if none of those 
things are in it, it shall be returned. 

Dee. It shall be returned. 

Gr. Take it. (He gives Dczmones the wallet.) 

Dee. Hear now, Palaestra and Ampelisca, what I say: Is this the 
wallet in which he said your casket was? 

Pa. I will easily make this thing clear to you. There must be in this 
matter a wooden casket. I will call over the name of every thing therein ; 
you will show nothing to me. If I shall speak falsely, I shall speak to 
no purpose. Then you will have for yourself whatever there is in it. 
But if I speak the truth, then I beg you, that my property may be re- 
turned to me. 

Dee, That pleases me. I think you speak fairly. 

Gr. By. Hercules, I think she speaks very unfairly. What, if she is 
a sorceress or a witch, and shall mention truly the names of all things 
therein ? Shall the witch have it ? 

Dee. She'll not take it off, unless she speaks the truth. She'll act 
the witch in vain. Open the wallet, then, that as soon as possible I may 
know the truth. 

Gr. He has it ; it is open. Ah, I am lost ! I see the casket. 

Dee. Is this it ? (Deemones takes out the casket?) 

Pa. It is. O, my parents, here I hold you inclosed. Here I have 
my hope and menns of finding you stored away. 

Gr. Then the gods should be angry with you, whoever you are, for 
having boxed your parents up in such a narrow place. 

Dm. Gripus, come here ; your interests are at stake. You, maiden, 
tell from where you are, what is within this, and of what appearance it 
is; mention everything. If, "by Hercules, you shall make a mistake, 
you'll not be able hereafter to rectify it ; you will lose your labor in the 
attempt. 

Gr. You ask simple justice. 

Tr. (To Gripus) By Pollux, he doesn't ask it of you, for you are 
unjust. 

Dee. Speak now, girl. Gripus, pay attention and be quiet. 

Pa. There are trinkets in it. 

Dee. Yes, I see them. 

Gr. I am killed by the first shot ; hold on, don't show them. 

Dee. Of what sort are they ? answer in order. 

Pa. First, a little golden sword engraved with letters. 

Dee. Tell me now what letters are on that sword. 



Plautus and Terence. 139 

Pa. The name of my father. Next was a small two-edged battle-ax, 
likewise golden, and also engraved. On the little ax was my mother's 
name. 

Dee. Stay. Tell me, what is the name of your father on this sword. 

Pa. Dasmones. 

Da. Immortal gods, where are my hopes? 

Gr. Nay, rather, by Pollux, where are mine ? 

Da. Continue, I beg you, at once. 

Gr. Softly, or go to perdition. 

Dee. Speak, what is your mother's name on the little battle-ax ? 

Pa. Daedalis. 

Dee. The gods desire my safety. 

Gr. But my destruction. 

Dee. This must be my daughter, Gripus. 

Gr. She may be, for all I care. ( To Trachalio) May the gods destroy 
you who saw me to-day, and myself, fool that I was, not to look around 
a hundred times to take care that none saw me, before I drew this from 
the water. 

Pa. Then a little silver sickle and two little hands joined, and a 
windlass. 

Gr. Confound you with your pigs and swine. 

Pa. And a golden bulla that my father gave me on my birthday. 

Dee. It is she, truly. I cannot be restrained from embracing her. 
Hail, my daughter ! I am your father ; I am Daemones ; and here with- 
in is your mother, Daedalis. 

Pa. Hail, my unlooked-for father ! 

Dee. Hail! with what pleasure I embrace you. 

Tr. It is pleasant that your piety has met its reward. 

Dez. Come, Trachalio, carry in the wallet. 

Tr. See the knavery of Gripus ; since you've had bad luck, I congratu- 
late you, Gripus. 

Dee. Come, my daughter, let us go to your mother. She can more 
minutely examine the matter, for she took care of you, and knows all 
about you. 

Tr. Let us all go within, since we give Joint assistance. 

Pa Follow me, Ampelisca. 

Am. It is a pleasure to me that the gods befriend you. 

The fifth act has little to do but to wind up the play, with 
the happiest results accruing all around to the parties con- 
cerned. Gripus learns that his master is minded to restore 



140 College Latin Course in English. 

the wallet to the slave-dealer. Here is a bit of the colloquy 
about it between master and slave : 

Gr. That's the reason you're poor, because you're too awfully honest. 

D<z. O, Gripus, Gripus ! shall I conceal what's brought to me, when I 
know it belongs to somebody else ? Our Dsemones can't do that sort of 
thing anyhow. It is proper for wise men always to look out for this, 
not to be partners in guilt with their slaves. I care nothing for money, 
except when I'm gaming. 

Gr. I've seen actors in just that very way get off wise saws and be ap- 
plauded, when they recommended these fine morals to the people. But 
when afterwards everybody went home, no one acted in the way they 
advised. 

Dee. Go into the house ; don't be bothersome ; hold your tongue, I'll 
not give you any thing ; don't you be mistaken. 

Gr. Then I pray the gods, that whatever there is in that wallet, 
whether gold or silver, it may all go to the dogs. 

This free-spoken slave had, for the purpose at least of that 
petulant moment, a low opinion of the teaching power of 
the drama. His petulance did not, perhaps, in this case lead 
him widely astray. 

Gripus is by no means at the end of his shifts to make 
something yet out of that wallet. He meets Labrax and 
drives with him a sharp bargain, according to which, for a 
handsome consideration in gold, he on his own part engages 
to get the lost wallet restored to its owner; Gripus will thus 
profit by his master's declared purpose to make the restitu- 
tion. He binds Labrax by a tremendous oath to make the 
promised payment of money. Labrax, however, though he 
swore with his lips, kept his mind unsworn. Having got 
back his wallet and, in voluntary requital to Dasmones, relin- 
quished all claim on Palaestra, he snaps his fingers at Gripus, 
refusing to pay that party in interest any fraction of what he 
had promised. Dsemones overhears the two bandying words 
in altercation, and intervenes to get justice done. The way 
in which all is accomplished affords good dramatic oppor- 
tunity for entertaining dialogue and lively exhibition of char- 



Plautus and Terence. 141 

acter. Gripus is kept in suspense, but even he says "All 
right " at last : 

Dee. Did you promise money to this slave ? 

La. I confess, I did. 

Dee. What you promised my slave ought to belong to me. Slave- 
dealer, don't you think you can use a slave-dealer's faith here ; you can't 
do it. 

Gr. Now do you think you have found a man whom you can cheat ? 
Good money must be paid to me ; I'll give it over to this one right off, 
that he may set me free. 

Dee. Inasmuch, therefore, as I have been liberal to you, and these 
things have been saved to you through my aid — 

Gr. Nay, by Hercules, through mine, don't you say yours ! 

Dee. {Aside to Gripus) If you're sharp, you'll keep still. {To Labrax) 
Then it is only fair for you to be liberal to me, well deserving it. 

La. Are you forsooth seeking my rights ? 

Da. It's a wonder I don't seek from you your rights at your own 
peril. 

Gr. I'm safe, the rascal's wavering ; I foresee my freedom. 

Dee. This one here found your wallet ; he is my slave. Furthermore, 
I have preserved this for you with a great sum of money. 

La. I am grateful to you ; and as for that talent which I swore to this 
fellow here, there's no reason but that you should have it. 

Gr. Here you, give it to me, then, if you're wise. 

Dee. "Will you keep still or not ? 

Gr. You are just pretending to plead my suit. By Hercules, you 
shan't cheat me out of this, if I did have to lose the rest of the find. 

Dee. You shall have a beating if you add another word. 

Gr. By Hercules, you may kill me ! I'll never be silenced in any 
other way than by a talent. 

La. {To Gripus) Indeed, he is aiding you, keep still. 

Dee. Come this way, slave-dealer. 

La. All right. 

Gr. Do this business openly now, I don't want any muttering nor 
whispering. 

Dee. Tell me, how much did you pay for that other little woman of 
yours, Ampelisca ? 

La. A thousand didrachms. 

Dee. Are you willing for rne to make you a handsome offer? 

La* Certainly. 



142 College Latin Course in English. 

Dee. I'll divide a talent — 

La. All right. 

Dee. And you keep half for this other woman, that she may be free, 
and give half to this boy here. 

La. Very good. (Pays Dcemones a half talent.} 

Da. For that half I'll free Gripus, through whom you found your 
wallet, and I my daughter. 

La. You do well, I thank you much. 

Gr. How soon, then, is the money going to be given to me? 

Dee. The affair is settled, Gripus, I've got the money. 

Gr. Yes, I know you've got it, but I want it, by Hercules ! 

Dee. Nothing of this goes to you, and don't expect it. I want that 
you should give him a release from his oath. 

Gr. By Hercules, I'm done for ! Unless I hang myself, I'm lost. 
Never shall you cheat me again after this day. 

Dee. Sup here to-day, slave-dealer. 

La. All right ; I'm delighted with the invitation. 

Dee. Follow me within. Spectators, I would invite you also to sup- 
per, if I had any thing to give, and there was enough at home for a feast, 
and I did not believe you had been invited elsewhere to supper. But 
if you are willing to give kind applause to this play, then do you all 
come and banquet with me sixteen years hence. You two shall sup here 
to-night. 

Gr. All right. 

All. Farewell, dear friends, now give applause, 
And happy live by fate's fixed laws. 

A very satisfactory upshot to the action of the comedy, we 
are sure all readers will admit. 

The time of Plautus is well marked in his play of " Pcen- 
ulus " (" The Young Carthaginian "). This piece was writ- 
ten during the Second Punic War. It introduces some 
Carthaginian characters, treating them on the whole with a 
degree of respect which reflects credit on the love of fair 
play that must have been presumed by Plautus to inspire his 
audience. It contains a philological curiosity. This is a 
short passage (some fifteen lines) purporting, whether humor- 
ously or not, to be in the Carthaginian language. If such be 
really its character, it constitutes the sole specimen surviv- 



Plautus and Terence. 



143 



ing of that perished speech. Learned authorities have 
widely differed as to the true way of regarding this curious 
bit of jargon. Some have insisted that it is modified He- 
brew ; others that it is Chinese, Persian, Coptic. More 
skeptical scholars, endowed with a wise sense of humor, have 
found it an ingenious invention of Plautus's own. The lines, 
whatever their linguistic significance, are put into the mouth 
of Hanno, the Carthaginian. Would our readers like to ex- 
ercise their own wits on the puzzle ? Here are the first three 
lines, given according to the text of this passage found in the 
celebrated " Delphin Classics" ; in different editions, impor- 
tant variations occur : 

Ythalonim, vualonuth. si chorathisima comsyth, 
Chym lachchunytli mumys thalmyctibari imisci 
Lipho canet hyth bymithii ad oedin bynuthii. 

Of Terence very brief presentation must suffice. Let us 
take for our specimen the play ex- 
hibited by the Ann Arbor students 
— " The Brothers," so entitled. For 
this play, we have the good fortune 
to possess a translation in verse by 
George Colman the elder. Though 
now near a hundred years old, it is 
free from archaic quality, and it runs 
off with smoothness and ease. The 
Ann Arbor young men printed it in 
parallel pages with the original text, 
in a neat libretto, for the use of their audience. 

The prologue is a signally honest piece of writing. The 
frank-spokenness of it propitiates one. The author, who out- 
right thus proclaims his own borrowing, is at least no sneak 
of a plagiarist. It will be observed that Terence's prologue 
differs from Plautus's in not explaining, as that did, the plot 
of the play. The anonymous allusion to Scipio, as reported 




TERENCE. 



144 College Latin Course in English. 

collaborator with Terence in production of comedy, will not 
escape the attention of the reader : 

The bard, perceiving his piece cavill'd at 

By partial critics, and his adversaries 

Misrepresenting what we're now to play, 

Pleads his own cause : and you shall be the judges, 

Whether he merits praise or condemnation. 

The Synapothnescontes is a piece 
By Diphilus, a comedy which Plautus, 
Having translated, call'd Commorientes. 
In the beginning of the Grecian play 
There is a youth, who rends a girl perforce 
From a procurer : and this incident, 
Untouch'd by Plautus, render'd word for word, 
Has our bard interwoven with his Brothers — 
The new piece which we represent to-day. 
Say then if this be theft, or honest use 
Of what remained unoccupied. For that 
Which malice tells, that certain noble persons 
Assist the bard, and write in concert with him ; 
That which they deem a heavy slander, he 
Esteems his greatest praise : that he can please 
Those who please you, who all the people please ; 
Those who in war, in peace, in council, ever 
Have rendered you the dearest services, 
And ever borne their faculties so meekly. 

Expect not now the story of the play : 
Part the old men, who first appear, will open ; 
Part will in act be shown. Be favorable; 
And let your candor to the poet now 
Increase his future earnestness to write ! 

We give an explication of the plot, in the words of the " In- 
troduction " to the Ann Arbor libretto : 

" Its name, * The Brothers,' is derived from the two pairs 
of brothers with whose fortunes the play is chiefly concerned ; 
Mi'ci-o, a town-bred, good-natured old bachelor; De'me-a, a 
thrifty farmer and stern parent, and the two sons of the latter. 
One of these, ^Es'chi-nus, adopted by Micio, had been al- 



Plautus and Terence. 145 

lowed by his indulgent uncle to fall into all kinds of excesses; 
the other, Ctes'i-pho, brought up on the farm, was believed 
by his rigorous father to be a pattern of all virtues, but had, 
in fact, fallen in love with a music-girl in the city. ^Eschinus, 
whose fondness for his brother is one of the happiest touches 
in the play, in order to put the girl in Ctesipho's possession 
and shield him from exposure, removes her by force from 
the slave-merchant's house! It is at this point of time that 
the play begins. Demea, who has just heard the story of 
the abduction, meets Micio and lays upon him the blame of 
^Eschinus's misdeeds. At the same time Sostrata, hearing 
the rumor, infers that he has deserted her daughter Pam- 
phila, whom he had promised to marry, and appeals to Hegio, 
an old friend of the family, to see that /Eschinus is brought 
to a sense of his duty. Demea, on his way back to the farm, 
learns from Hegio of ^Eschinus's relations with Pamphila, and 
returning to find Micio, is sent on a fool's errand to various 
parts of the city by the cunning slave Syrus. Upon his 
return to the house of Micio he finds that the latter has given 
his consent to the marriage of vEschinus with Pamphila, and 
also discovers, to his great astonishment, that Ctesipho has 
outwitted him, and has been all the time at his uncle's. In 
the fifth act Demea becoming convinced that his brother is 
in the right, suddenly changes character, becomes the most 
indulgent of fathers, and the comedy ends, as all comedies 
should, with the marriage of the parties most interested." 

We shall not be able here to follow the course of the ac- 
tion throughout. The play is pitched on a low key of mo- 
rality. No doubt the fashion of its time is truly mirrored in it. 
The spirit in which the Greek authors wrote is that of easy- 
going, rather good-hearted, Epicureanism. The philosophy 
of life recommended is, ' Make the best of things about 
as they are; do not worry yourself trying to improve them.' 
Roman strictness was already in the way of sadly relaxing its 
tone, when it could contentedly listen and see, while such 
7 



146 College Latin Course in English. 

maxims of conduct were set forth. We shall no doubt best 
serve our readers by presenting to them at once, with little 
retrenchment, the fifth, the closing, act of the comedy. 

Demea, the country churl, of the two brothers, is repre- 
sented as becoming at last an out-and-out convert to the 
smiling wisdom of Micio, the dweller in the city. The sud- 
denness and the completeness of the conversion, but espe- 
cially, too, the startlingly aggressive propagandist, or mission- 
ary, phase which the conversion takes on, are an essential 
element in the comic effect. Demea soliloquizes and resolves 
to adopt his popular brother's universal complaisance. Those 
who have grown used to only surliness from Demea, are 
amazed at the change. A sentence of very worldly wisdom 
from Micio seems to have done the business for Demea. 
' Demea,' says Micio, in effect, 'the boys will come out right 
when they grow up. Spendthrift youth quite naturally be- 
comes miserly old age. That is the law.' 

my dear Demea, in all matters else 
Increase of years increases wisdom in us ; 
This only vice age brings along with it ; 

' We're all more worldly-minded than there's need:' 
Which passion age, that kills all passions else, 
Will ripen in your sons, too. 

iDemea resists at the moment, but the words work in his 
*mnd, as seems to show the following soliloquy, opening the 
fifth act : 

Never did man lay down so fair a plan, 

So wise a rule of life, but fortune, age, 

Or long experience, made some change in it ; 

And taught him, that those things he thought he knew 

He did not know, and what he held as best, 

Tn practice he threw by. 

Striving to make a fortune for my sons, 

1 have worn out my prime of life and health : 
And now, my course near finished, what return 
Do I receive for all my toil? Their hate. 



Plautus and Terence. 147 

Meanwhile, my brother, without any care, 
Reaps all a father's comforts. Him they love. 
— Well, then, let me endeavor in my turn 
To teach my tongue civility, to give 
With open-handed generosity, 
Since I am challeng'd to 't ! — and let me, too, 
Obtain the love and reverence of my children ! 
And if 'tis bought by bounty and indulgence, 
I will not be behindhand. Cash will fail : 
What's that to me, who am the eldest born ? 

Demea has prompt opportunity to put his new scheme of 
conduct into operation. Syrus, the sly slave, who has, with 
his tricks, cost Demea so much bootless trouble, comes in, 
bringing a message from Micio to his brother. Demea 
swallows a great qualm of loathness and greets the knavish 
fellow fair : 

Demea. Who's there ? 

What, honest Syrus ! save you : how is 't with you ? 
How goes it? 
Syrus. Very well, sir. 

De. {Aside) Excellent! 

Now for the first time I, against my nature, 
Have added these three phrases, " Honest Syrus ! 
How is't? — How goes it !" — {To Syrus) You have proved 

yourself 
A worthy servant. I'll reward you for it. 
Sy. I thank you, sir. 

De. I will, I promise you ; 

And you shall be convinc'd on 't very soon. 

Geta, another slave, not Demea's own (as also Syrus was 
not), is the next surprised person. He has just respectfully 
saluted Demea, when, Demea replying, the following passage 
between them, spiced to spectators with asides from the 
strangely modified man, occurs : 

De. Geta, I this day have found you 

To be a fellow of uncommon worth : 
For sure that servant's faith is well approv'd 



148 College Latin Course in English. 

Who holds his master's interest at heart, 

As I perceived that you did, Geta ! Wherefore, 

Soon as occasion offers I'll reward you. 

{Aside) I am endeavoring to be affable, 

And not without success. 
Ge. 'Tis kind in you 

To think of your poor slave, sir. 
De. {Aside) First of all, 

I court the mob, and win them by degrees. 

^Eschinus, the scapegrace son of Demea — spoiled, as the 
father thinks, through the indulgence of the uncle who has 
brought him up — now takes his turn of being astonished at 
Demea's new humor. ^Eschinus is impatiently waiting to be 
married : 

sEschinus. They murder me with their delays ; and while 

They lavish all this pomp upon the nuptials, 

They waste the live-long day in preparation. 
D^mea. How does my son ? 

-4s. My father ! Are you here ? 

De. Ay, by affection, and by blood your father, 

Who love you better than my eyes. But why 

Do you not call the bride ? 
j$L. 'Tis what I long for : 

But wait the music and the singers. 
De. Pshaw ! 

Will you for once be rul'd by an old fellow ? 
M. Well? 
De. Ne'er mind singers, company, lights, music ; 

But tell them to throw down the garden wall, 

As soon as possible. Convey the bride 

That way, and lay both houses into one. 

Bring, too, the mother, and whole family, 

Over to us. 
AL. I will. O charming father ! 

De. {Aside) Charming ! See there ! he calls me charming now. 

— My brother's house will be a thoroughfare ; 

Throng'd with whole crowds of people; much expense 

Will follow ; very much : what 's that to me ? 

I am called charming, and get into favor. 

Ho ! order Babylo immediately 



Plautus and Terence. 149 

To pay him twenty mime. Prithee, Syrus, 

Why don't you execute your orders ? 
Sy. What ? 

De. Down with the wall! {Exit Syrus) — You, Geta, go and bring 

The ladies over. 
Ge. Heaven bless you, Demea, 

For all your friendship to our family ! {Exit Geta?) 
De. They're worthy of it. — What say you to this ? {to ALschinus.) 
JE. I think it admirable. 
De. 'Tis much better 

Than for a poor soul, sick and lying-in, 

To be conducted through the street. 
sE. I never 

Saw any thing concerted better, sir. 
De. 'Tis just my way. — But here comes Micio. 

Perhaps the most wonder-stricken man of all, was Micio 
hearing of Demea's extravagant proposal for the nuptials. 
Micio is destined, however, to be still further impressed ; for 
Demea, in the overflow of his vicarious universal benevo- 
lence, is even going to make his bachelor brother marry the 
mother of ^Eschinus's bride. The following scenes show 
this matrimonial charity successfully enforced upon Micio's 
consent (the lady in the case not being consulted at all), 
with a comic profusion of other kindnesses scattered freely 
about, at the instance of the whimsically altered Demea; 
wherewithal — the audience, be sure, sympathetically amused 
and delighted — the comedy ends: 

Micio. {At entering) My brother order it, d'ye say? Where is he? 

— Was this your order, Demea? 
De. 'Twas my order ; 

And by this means, and every other way, 

I would unite, serve, cherish, and oblige, 

And join the family to ours ! 
j/E. { To Micio) Pray do, sir. 

Mi. I don't oppose it. 
De. Nay, but 'tis our duty. 

First, there's the mother of the bride — 
Mi. What then ? 



150 College Latin Course in English. 

De. Worthy and modest. 

Mi. So they say. 

De. In years. 

Mi. True. 

De. And so far advanced that she is long 

Past child-bearing, a poor lone woman too, 

With none to comfort her. 
Mi. What means all this? 

De. This woman 'tis your place to marry, brother ; 

And yours (to ALschinus) to bring him to 't. 
Mi. I marry her ? 

De. You. 
Mi. I ? 

De. Yes, you, I say. 

Mi. Ridiculous ! 

De. ( To sEschinus) If you're a man, he'll do 't. 
jE. {To Micio) Dear father! 

Mi. How ! 

Do you then join him, fool ? 
De. Nay, don't deny. 

It can't be otherwise. 
Mi. You've lost your senses ! 

Al. Let me prevail upon you, sir ! 
Mi. You're mad. 

Away! 
De. Oblige your son. 

Mi. Have you your wits ? 

I a new-married man at sixty-five ! 

And marry a decrepid poor old woman ! 

Is that what you advise me? 
jE. Do it, sir ! 

I've promis'd them. 
Mi. You've promised them, indeed ! 

Prithee, boy, promise for yourself. 
De. Come, come ! 

What if he asked still more of you ? 
Mi. As if 

This was not even the utmost. 
De. Nay, comply ! 

JE. Be not obdurate ! 

De. Come, come, promise him. 

Mi. Won't you desist ? 
s£. No, not till I prevail. 



Plautus and Terence. 151 

Mi. This is mere force. 

De. Nay, nay, comply, good Micio! 

Mi. Though this appears to me absurd, wrong, foolish, 

And quite repugnant to my scheme of life, 

Yet, if you're so much bent on 't, let it be ! 
^S. Obliging father, worthy my best love ! 
De. {Aside) What now? This answers to my wish. What more? 

Hegio's their kinsman, {to Micio) our relation, too, 

And very poor. We should do him some service. 
Mi. Do what ? 
De. There is a little piece of ground, 

Which you let out near town. Let's give it him 

To live upon. 
Mi. So little, do you call it? 

De. Well, if 'tis large, let's give it. He has been 

Father to her ; a good man ; our relation. 

It will be given worthily. In short, 

That saying, Micio, I now make my own, 

Which you so lately and so wisely quoted : 

" It is the common failing of old men, 

To be too much intent on worldly matters : " 

Let us wipe off that stain. The saying's true, 

And should be practiced. 
Mi. Well, well, be it so, 

If he requires it. {Pointing to sEschinus.) 
s£. I beseech it, father. 

De. Now you're indeed my brother, soul and body. 
Mi. I'm glad to find you think me so. 
Dt. {Aside) I foil him 

At his own weapons. 

SCENE VI. 
{To them Syrus.) 

Syrus, I have executed 

Your orders, Demea. 
De. A good fellow !— Truly, 

Syrus, I think, should be made free to-day. 
Mi. Made free! He?— Wherefore ? 

-De- O, for many reasons. 

Sy. O Demea, you're a noble gentleman, 

I've taken care of both your sons from boys ; 



152 College Latin Course in English. 

Taught them, instructed them, and given them 

The wholesomest advice that I was able. 
De. The thing's apparent : and these offices : 

To cater ; — bring a wench in, safe and snug ; — 

Or in midday prepare an entertainment ; — 

All these are talents of no common man. 
Sy. O, most delightful gentleman ! 
De. Besides, 

He has been instrumental, too, this day, 

In purchasing the music-girl. He manag'd 

The whole affair. We should reward him for it. 

It will encourage others. — In a word, 

Your ^Eschinus would have it so. 
Mi. Do you 

Desire it ? 
Al. Yes, sir. 

Mi. Well, if you desire it — 

Come hither, Syrus ! — Be thou free ! 
(Syrus kneels : Micio strikes him, being the ceremony of manumission, 
or giving a slave his freedom?) 

Sy. I thank you : 

Thanks to you all ; but most of all, to Demea ! 
De. I'm glad of your good fortune. 
yS. So am I. 

Sy. I do believe it ; and I wish this joy 

Were quite complete, and I might see my wife, 

My Phrygia, too, made free, as well as I. 
De. The very best of women ! 
Sy. And the first 

That suckled my young master's son, your grandson. 
De. Indeed ! the first who suckled him ! — Nay, then, 

Beyond all doubt she should be free. 
Mi. For what ? 

De. For that. Nay, take the sum, whate'er it be, 

Of me. 
Sy. Now all the powers above grant all 

Your wishes, Demea. 
Mi. You have thriv'd to-day 

Most rai-ely, Syrus. 
De. And besides this, Micio, 

It would be handsome to advance him something, 

To try his fortune with. He'll soon return it. 



Plautus and Terence. 153 



Mi. 


Not that. (Snapping his fingers.} 


M. 


He's honest. 


Sy. 


Faith, I will return it. 




Do but advance it. 


M. 


Do, sir. 


Mi. 


Well, I'll think on 't. 


De. 


(To Syrus.) 1*11 see that he shall do't. 


Sy. 


Thou best of men ! 


M. 


My most indulgent father ! 


Mi. 


What means this ? 



Whence comes this hasty change of manners, brother ? 

Whence flows all this extravagance ? and whence 

This sudden prodigality ? 
De. I'll tell you : 

To show you that the reason why our sons 

Think you so pleasant and agreeable, 

Is not from your deserts, or truth, or justice, 

But your compliance, bounty, and indulgence. 

— Now, therefore, if I'm odious to you, son, 

Because I'm not subservient to your humor, 

In all things, right or wrong : away with care ! 

Spend, squander, and do what you will — bu.t if, 

In those affairs where youth has made you blind, 

Eager, and thoughtless, you will suffer me. 

To counsel and correct — and in due season 

Indulge you — I am at your service. 
&. Father, 

In all things we submit ourselves to you. 

What's fit and proper, you know best. — But what 

Shall come of my poor brother ! 
De. I consent 

That he shall have her : let him finish there. 
&. All now is as it should be. {To the audience') Clap. your 
hands. 

Readers will readily find in this play of Terence's a con- 
siderable advance from Plautus toward the modern type of 
the comedy. 

Terence has contributed several sentences and phrases to 
the world's stock of familiar quotations. Fortes For tuna ad- 
juvat (Fortune favors the brave); Homo sum ; humani nihil a 
7* 



154 College Latin Course in English. 

me alienum puto (Man am I ; nothing that is human do I count 
foreign to myself), are examples. Let Plautus, too, have his 
credit on this score. Quern Di diligunt adolescens moritur, is 
Plautus's — in Latin form ; the sentiment, however, had al- 
ready been expressed by Menander in Greek. "Whom the 
gods love die young," Byron translated it; changing the 
grammatical number from singular to plural, for greater neat- 
ness of English phrase. 

The glimpses that, through Roman adaptations, we catch of 
the New Comedy of Athens, make us feel how much we lost 
in losing the originals. As it is, modern comedy, best, no 
doubt, in the French language, has been not a little indebted 
to inspiration and example derived, through Plautus and 
Terence, from Menander and his peers. Ancient Greece 
reaches long hands in many directions, to mold for us the 
forms, and to dictate to us the spirit, of our literature and 
art. 



IV. 
LUCRETIUS. 



An Epicurean, but an Epicurean very different in motive 
and in tone from merry-making Terence, was the grave, 
earnest, intent poet Lu-cre'tius. Dramatist, and scarce poet 
at all, though he wrote in verse, was Terence. Philosopher 
principally (or expounder of philosophy), but true poet, too — 
incidentally and as it were involuntarily — was Lucretius. The 
Lucretian philosophy — science call it rather, or attempted sci- 
ence — has perished utterly ; the Lucretian poetry survives, to 
perish never. Such sport are we mortals of a power not 
ourselves, a power greater than we ! What Lucretius mainly 
meant, has come to naught. What he at times hardly seems to 
have meant at all, is his chief title to living human praise. 



Lucretius. 155 



A great poet he was, wrecked in seeking to be a great ex- 
pounder of philosophy — a great poet, let us shortly say, who 
did not write a great poem. 

Titus Lucretius Cams was -a contemporary of Caesar and 
of Cicero. But, except this bare fact of date, we know al- 
most nothing of the man. He scarcely belonged to the age 
in which he lived. His sympathies were all with an earlier 
time. He felt the existing political order crumbling about 
him ; but, though of knightly blood, he took no part in shaping 
the new political order that should succeed. Roman in 
character, he seems somehow not to have been Roman in 
aim and scheme of life. He made philosophy — that is, sci- 
ence — his chief motive. This was not Roman. The Roman 
course would have been to choose politics for the chief thing, 
and let philosophy take its chance as a thing incidental. 

But nobody can separate himself completely from his 
times. And Lucretius, though insular, was yet in the sea. 
The sea around Lucretius was irreligion, skepticism, atheism. 
Olympianism was, indeed, still a ritual; but it was no longer 
a creed. The prevailing unbelief involved Lucretius. Nay, 
unbelief is not the word to describe the state of this man's 
mind. He was not an unbeliever, he was a disbeliever. He 
was a vehement disbeliever. What in others was an apathy, 
in him was a passion. He disbelieved in the gods so in- 
tensely, that he almost rehabilitated the gods, that he might 
hate them the better. 

Voltaire launched once at hierarchical imposture a phrase 
which acquired an evil renown, Ecrasez VInfdme. Speaking 
in a spirit more noble than Voltaire's, because a spirit more 
earnest, more conscientious, more reverent of the truth, 
Lucretius too, of the verily damnable gods of Greece and 
Rome, in effect said, Let us crush, let us abolish the wretches. 
To make science triumph over religion, such as religion then 
was, to exalt reason above faith, to establish philosophy in 
the room of theology — maybe said to have been the object of 



156 College Latin Course in English. 

the one incomplete poem by which Lucretius is known. It 
was an almost exact opposite to the object of the great poem 
of Milton. That object was to explore eternity and vindi- 
cate the ways of God to man. This object was to explore 
the universe and vindicate man against the ways of gods — 
gods that were no gods. The audacious sublimity, the sub- 
lime audacity, of their several attempts, seem to ally the 
two poets in genius, while separating them thus widely in 
aim. 

The title of Lucretius's poem is De Rerum Natura, Con- 
cerning the Nature of Things. The scheme of the poem is 
as large as the vagueness of the title would seem to imply. 
The poet, as just said, attempts nothing less than to explain 
the universe. His motive ostensibly is didactic, not poetic. 
He will establish atheism upon an impregnable basis of 
strict science. His subject is not for the sake of a poem. 
His poem is severely for the sake of his subject ; as, finally, 
his subject itself is for the sake of his object. 

It is instantaneously evident that on such a theme as that 
of Lucretius, with such a motive as his inspiring the author, 
a great poem could not be produced. The De Rerum 
Natura is accordingly not a great poem. It is further instan- 
taneously evident that no scientific treatise of permanent value 
for instruction in science, having the ambitious scope and 
pretension that Lucretius proposed to himself for his work, 
could possibly be written, whether in prose or in verse, in 
Lucretius's time. The De Rerum Natura is accordingly 
quite worthless as science. If, then, neither as a scientific 
treatise, nor as a poem, the work of Lucretius is to be ac- 
counted of value, on what ground, forsooth, you will ask, can 
it be worth our attention ? We answer, The De Rerum 
Natura is poetically valuable, not, indeed, as constituting a 
poem, but as containing poetry; and scientifically valuable, 
not, indeed, as preserving a record of verified, or verifiable, 
science, but as preserving a highly interesting record of past 



Lucretius. 157 



human opinion and speculation on scientific subjects. We 
proceed to set forth a few specimens of the treasures, in both 
these kinds, that are to be found in Lucretius's celebrated 
work. 

It is constantly to be understood that, like his Roman 
literary brethren all, Lucretius was a copious borrower from 
the Greek. He does not pretend to be the inventor of the 
cosmical system that he expounds. He derives all from Epicu- 
rus, and he attributes all to Epicurus. He is devoutly loyal 
in his relation of disciple. Having first abolished the gods, he 
almost makes a god of Epicurus to supply their vacant room. 
Lucretius, indeed, in this one thing, goes beyond his master 
— that is, in denying the existence of the gods; Epicurus let 
the gods live, though he made them dwell apart, in a stirless 
quiet, taking no interest in human concerns. For our 
knowledge in detail of what Epicurus taught, we are largely 
indebted to Lucretius. The great master's own works, 
multifarious as these were, have nearly all perished. 

Lucretius begins his poem rather curiously, for an atheist. 
He begins it with an ostensibly dutiful invocation of Venus. 
We are, of course, to suppose that he meant his Venus to be 
simply a poetical personification of the principle of fecun- 
dity and grace. This invocation is one of the most celebrated 
passages in Latin poetry. Mr. Lowell speaks, strongly, thus 
of it : 

" The invocation of Venus, as the genetic force of nature, 
by Lucretius, seems to me the one sunburst of purely poetic 
inspiration which the Latin language can show." 

So famous a passage must be shown our readers. Here it 
is, first in the consummately fine prose version of Mr. Munro, 
acknowledged the best English translator of Lucretius : 

Mother of the Aeneadae, darling of men and gods, increase-giving Ve- 
nus, who beneath the gliding signs of heaven fillest with thy presence the 
ship-carrying sea, the corn-bearing lands, since through thee every kind 
of living things is conceived, rises up and beholds the light of the sun. 



158 College Lati?i Course in English. 

Before thee, goddess, flee the winds, the clouds of heaven , before thee 
and thy advent ; for thee earth manifold in works puts forth sweet-smell- 
ing flowers ; for thee the levels of the sea do laugh and heaven propitiated 
shines with outspread light. For soon as the vernal aspect of day is 
disclosed, and the birth-favoring breeze of favonius unbarred is blow- 
ing fresh, first the fowls of the air, o lady, show signs of thee and thy 
entering in, throughly smitten in heart by thy power. Next the wild 
herds bound over the glad pastures and swim the rapid rivers : in such 
wise each made prisoner by thy charm follows thee with desire, whither 
thou goest to lead it on. Yes throughout seas and mountains and sweep- 
ing rivers and leafy homes of birds and grassy plains, striking fond love 
into the breasts of all thou constrainest them each after its kind to 
continue their races with desire. Since thou then art sole mistress of 
the nature of things, and without thee nothing rises up into the divine 
borders of light, nothing grows to be glad or lovely, I would have thee 
for a helpmate in writing the verses which I essay to pen on the nature of 
things for our own son of the Memmii, whom thou, goddess, hast willed 
to have no peer, rich as he ever is in every grace. Wherefore all the 
more, o lady, lend my lays an everliving charm. Cause meanwhile the 
savage works of war to be lulled to rest throughout all seas and lands ; 
for thou alone canst bless mankind with calm peace, seeing that Mavors 
lord of battle controls the savage works of war, Mavors who often flings 
himself into thy lap quite vanquished by the never-healing wound of 
love. . . . While, then, lady, he is reposing. . .shed thyself about him and 
above, and pour from thy lips sweet discourse, asking, glorious dame, 
gentle peace for the Romans. For neither can we in our country's day 
of trouble with untroubled mind think only of our work, nor can 
the illustrious offset of Memmius in times like these be wanting to the 
general weal. 

In printing the preceding extract, we have followed exactly 
the peculiar typography adopted by Mr. Munro for his trans- 
lation of Lucretius. The absence of punctuation, and of other 
distinctive marks, is no doubt designed by the translator to 
reproduce approximately, in effect to our eyes, the physiog- 
nomy of the ancient manuscripts in which the original Latin 
of the poem has been preserved. In the case of all Roman 
authors, the best Latin texts are of late generally printed in 
a style similar to that exemplified above. 

For the interest of the comparison we now add a render- 



Lucretius. 159 



ing in verse, taken from Mr. W. H. Mallock's volume on 
Lucretius in Ancient Classics for English Readers : 

Mother and mistress of the Roman race, 

Pleasure of gods and men, O fostering 
Venus, whose presence breathes in every place, 

Peopling all soils whence fruits and grasses spring, 
And all the water's navigable ways, 

Water and earth and air and every thing, 
Since by thy power alone their life is given, 
To all beneath the sliding signs of heaven; 

Goddess, thou comest, and the clouds before thee 
Melt, and the ruffian blasts take flight and fly ; 

The daedal lands, they know thee and adore thee, 
And clothe themselves with sweet flowers instantly; 

Whilst pouring down its largest radiance o'er thee, 
In azure calm subsides the rounded sky, 

To overarch thine advent; and for thee 

A livelier sunlight laughs along the sea. 

For lo, no sooner come the soft and glowing 

Days of the spring, and all the air is stirred 
With amorous breaths of zephyr freshly blowing, 

Than the first prelude of thy power is heard 
On all sides, in aerial music flowing 

Out of the bill of every pairing bird ; 
And every songster feels, on every tree, 
Its small heart pulsing with the power of thee. 

Next the herds feel thee ; and the wild fleet races 

Bound o'er the fields, that smile in the bright weather, 

And swim the streaming floods in fordless places, 
Led by thy chain, and captive in thy tether. 

At last through seas and hills, thine influence passes, 
Through field and flood and all the world together, 

And the birds' leafy homes ; and thou dost fire 

Each to renew his kind with sweet desire. 



Wherefore, since thou, O lady, only thou 
Art she who guides the world upon its way ; 

Nor can aught rise without thee anyhow 
Up into the clear borders of the day, 



160 College Latin Course in English. 

Neither can aught without thee ever grow 

Lovely and sweet — to thee, to thee I pray — 
Aid and be near thy suppliant as he sings 
Of nature and the secret ways of things. 

The rest of our citations we shall take, where we can, from 
Mr. Mallock's metrical rendering. In his volume at least on 
Lucretius, his verse seems better than his prose. Judged 
simply from this particular work, he, to use Milton's phrase 
respecting himself, has but as it were the use of his left 
hand for writing prose. The foregoing stanzas, not indeed 
beyond criticism in minor points, are assuredly in general 
very fine : that they are as fine as the merit of the original 
demanded, would be much to say. (" Take flight and fly," is a 
curious pleonasm of identical repetition ; and "anyhow " is a 
word that Mr. Mallock should have let no extremity of versi- 
fier's distress reduce him to use). 

The following is the fashion in which Lucretius at the 
same time acknowledges his discipleship to Epicurus, and 
vents his hatred of religion, as religion was understood by 
the Romans: 

When human life, a shame to human eyes, 
Lay sprawling in the mire in foul estate, 

A cowering thing without the strength to rise, 
Held down by fell religion's heavy weight — 

Religion scowling downward from the skies, 
With hideous head, and vigilant eyes of hate — 

First did a man of Greece presume to raise 

His brows, and give the monster gaze for gaze. 

Him not the tales of all the gods in heaven, 

Nor the heaven's lightnings, nor the menacing roar 

Of thunder daunted. He was only driven, 
By these vain vauntings, to desire the more 

To burst through Nature's gates, and rive the unriven 
Bars. And he gained the day ; and, conqueror, 

His spirit broke beyond our world, and past 

Its flaming walls, and fathomed all the vast. 



Lucretius. 16 1 



And back returning, crowned with victory, he 

Divulged of things the hidden mysteries, 
Laying quite bare what can and cannot be, 

How to each force is set strong boundaries, 
How no power raves unchained, and nought is free. 

So the times change ; and now religion lies 
Trampled by us ; and unto us 'tis given 
Fearless with level gaze to scan the heaven. 

There is something of a Byronic quality to be felt in such 
writing as that. The example of Iph-i-ge-ni'a, offered in sac- 
rifice, is cited in close sequel, as illustrating 

To what damned deeds religion urges men. 

Lucretius lays it down as his great first principle, that " no 
object is ever divinely produced out of nothing." This might 
seem only to mean that there must have been matter, prior to 
any creative act of a divine being. But Lucretius means 
more than that. For he speaks presently of being able also 
to show "the manner in which all things are done without 
the hand of the gods." " The hand of the gods " being thus 
out of the question, the universe, since it now exists, must al- 
ways have existed. Always, but not always in its present state. 
There was a first state different from the present. That first 
state consisted of particles, particles moving, particles moving 
in a vacuum. Such was the universe in the beginning. Im- 
agine a universal snow-storm. The spectacle of those falling 
flakes of snow will very well represent the spectacle of the 
universe in its Lucretian primordial condition. How the 
infinitesimal ultimate atoms, supposed by Lucretius, came 
first to exist, he does not explain ; as no more does he explain 
how those atoms came to be in motion. That such, how- 
ever, was the primal state of things, he is quite sure. And he 
makes nothing of telling how, from the chaos of atoms moving 
in void, the present cosmos sprang into being. It is simply on 
this wise: One moving atom had some slight, very slight, 



162 College Latin Course in English. 

deflection — whence received, does not appear — from its 
straight course, and so, impinging on a fellow atom, adhered 
thereto — why adhered, is left unsaid — or else, bounding off 
repelled, attached itself to its neighbor on the other side. 
Thus at length by chance the infinite multitude of individual 
atoms arranged themselves into the existing order of the uni- 
verse. "A fortuitous concourse of atoms," and no god, did 
the whole business for Lucretius then ; as the great principle 
of " evolution," and no God, does the whole business now — for 
some. And of these two attempts to solve the problem of 
the universe, one perhaps is as truly philosophical as the 
other. 

The affinities — it may in passing be said — by which the Lu- 
cretian or Epicurean atomic theory of the universe is allied 
with modern science, in some of its schools, are too obvious 
to need specific pointing out. Such affinities are, no doubt, 
in part apparent only, and in so far illusory. But it remains 
true that for philosophers, or scientists so-called, of the 
atheistic and materialistic sort, Lucretius — as philosopher, 
not poet — is well entitled to enjoy, after long neglect, his 
signal rehabilitation in acceptance and currency. 

We cannot undertake to expound Lucretius in anything 
like fullness, even of abstract. The result of such an under- 
taking would by necessity be insufferably tedious and barren. 
Lucretius had a shrewd, sagacious, penetrative intelligence, 
but that intelligence sowed itself once for all on wind, when 
it accepted the Epicurean philosophy as the key to the mys- 
tery of being. A melancholy waste of intellect and genius 
misdirected — such, to thoughtful minds, seems the spectacle 
displayed in the De Rerum Natura of Lucretius. 

By way of exemplifying, as we pass, the degree of poetic 
quality achieved by the Latin poet in the general tenor of his 
expository verse, we offer a single stanza of Mr. Mallock's 
translation, wherein, true to h'is original, the translator se- 
verely follows for once the line of mere hard definition and 






Lucretius. 163 



statement. Readers will see from this how admirably bare 
of poetry very good didactic verse can be made : 

That is a property, which cannot be 
Disjoined from a thing and separate . 

Without the said thing's death. Fluidity 
Is thus a property of water ; weight 

Is of a stone. Whilst riches, poverty, 
Slavery, freedom, concord, war and hate, 

Which change, and not inhere in things of sense, 

We name not properties, but accidents. 

That characteristically Roman sentiment, desire of death- 
less literary fame, is acknowledged by Lucretius, in the fol- 
lowing strain of genuine, nay, of exquisite, poetry. The poet 
has been avowing his sense of the difficulty of his subject; 
" yet," he says : 

Yet my heart, smarting with desire for praise, 
Me urges on to sing of themes like these, 

And that great longing to pour forth my lays 
Constrains me, and the loved Pierides, 

Whose pathless mountain-haunts I now explore, 

And glades where no man's foot has fallen before. 

Ah sweet, ah sweet, to approach the untainted springs, 
And quaff the virgin waters cool and clear, 

And cull the flowers that have been unknown things 
To all men heretofore ! and yet more dear 

When mine shall be the adventurous hand that brings 
A crown for mine own brows, from places where 

The Muse has deigned to grant a crown for none, 

Save for my favored brows, and mine alone. 

Such a passage as that, presenting the writer in the char- 
acter of conscious and confessed poetical aspirant — "garland 
and singing robes about him " — almost makes one give up 
holding that Lucretius was in aim and ambition pre-emi- 
nently philosopher. That passage at least reads quite like 
the authentic outburst of a distinctively and predominantly 
poetic aspiration pent up in the breast of the man. 



164 College Latin Course in English. 

Toward the end of book first, Lucretius reaches, in a 
kind of resumption of his argument, the following statement 
of his theory of atoms and void : 

For blindly, blindly, and without design. 

Did these first atoms their first meetings try ; 

No ordering thought was there, no will divine 

To guide them ; but through infinite time gone by 

Tossed and tormented they essayed to join, 

And clashed through the void space tempestuously, 

Until at last that certain whirl began, 

Which slowly formed the eaith and heaven and man. 

The second book opens with a celebrated passage. This 
is that reflection of Lucretius, promised our readers, on the 
pleasure with which one in safety on the shore sees a ship 
wrestling with storm in the sea. We give, along with the 
reflection itself, enough of the succeeding context to make 
plain the object which the reflection was introduced to serve : 

'Tis sweet when tempests roar upon the sea 
To watch from land another's deep distress 

Amongst the waves — his toil and misery : 
Not that his sorrow makes our happiness, 

But that some sweetness there must ever be 
Watching what sorrows we do not possess: 

So, too, 'tis sweet to safely view from far 

Gleam o'er the plains the savage ways of war. 

But sweeter far to look with purged eyes 

Down from the battlements and topmost towers 

Of learning, those high bastions of the wise, 
And far below us see this world of ours, 

The vain crowds wandering blindly, led by lies, 
Spending in pride and wrangling all their powers. 

So far below — the pigmy toil and strife, 

The pain and piteous rivalries of life. 

O peoples miserable ! O fools and blind ! 

What night you cast o'er all the days of man! 
And in that night before you and behind 

What perils prowl \ But you nor will nor can 



Lucretius. 165 



See that the treasure of a tranquil mind 

Is all that Nature pleads for, for this span, 
So that between our birth and grave we gain 
Some quiet pleasures, and a pause from pain. 

In the following stanza, removed from those just quoted by 
only a short interval, a genuine feeling for the beauty of 
nature will be recognized, feeling such as was not com- 
mon in the literary world before Lucretius — in fact, a mod- 
ern-seeming sentiment, a quality almost Wordsworthian : 

The grass is ours, and sweeter sounds than these, 
As down we couch us by the babbling spring, 

And overhead we hear the branching trees 

That shade us, whisper ; and for food we bring 

Only the country's simple luxuries. 

Ah, sweet is this, and sweetest in the spring, 

When the sun goes through all the balmy hours, 

And all the green earth's lap is filled with flowers ! 

The love of nature thus exemplified from Lucretius maybe 
said to constitute in him almost a characteristic trait. Virgil 
might conceivably have written his descriptions from pictures 
of what he describes. Lucretius could not have written his 
descriptions otherwise than directly from nature herself. 

But we should fail to make readers appreciate the relation 
in which these gleams of poetry shown stand to the general 
tenor of the text that contains them, if we did not at the 
same time exhibit at least a specimen or two of the scientific 
discussions and explanations composing the main tissue of 
Lucretius's work. 

Our poet-philosopher applies his atomic theory to explain 
the origin and reason of different tastes to the palate. The 
different tastes are due to the different shapes of the atoms 
of which the sapid substances consist. Lucretius (accord- 
ing to Mr. Munro) : 

The liquids honey and milk excite a pleasant sensation of tongue 
when held in the mouth ; but, on the other hand, the nauseous nature of 



1 66 College Latin Course in English. 



wormwood and of harsh centaury writhes the mouth with a noisome 
flavor ; so that you may easily see that the things which are able to af- 
fect the senses pleasantly, consist of smooth and round elements ; while all 
those, on the other hand, which are found to be bitter and harsh, are held 
in connexion by particles that are more hooked and for this reason are 
wont to tear open passages into our senses, and in entering in to break 
through the body. 

Lucretius blithely undertakes to tell a great secret of the 
universe. " Let us now sing," he says — we make a long skip 
forward to the fifth book, to find this extract — " Let us now 
sing what causes the motions of the stars : " 

In the first place, if the great sphere of heaven revolves, we must say 
that an air presses on the pole at each end and confines it on the out- 
side and closes it in at both ends ; and then that a third air streams 
above and moves in the same direction in which roll on as they shine 
the stars of the eternal world ; or else that this third air streams below 
in order to carry up the sphere in the contrary direction ; just as we see 
rivers turn wheels and water-scoops. It is likewise quite possible too 
that all the heaven remains at rest, while at the same time the glittering 
signs are carried on ; either because rapid heats of ether are shut in and 
whirl round while seeking a -way out and roll their fires in all directions 
through heaven's vast quarters ; or else an air streaming from some part 
from another source outside drives and whirls the fires ; or else they may 
glide on of themselves going whithersoever the food of each calls and 
invites them, feeding their flamy bodies everywhere throughout heaven. 
For which of these causes is in operation in this world, it is not easy to 
affirm for certain ; but what can be and is done throughout the universe 
in various worlds formed on various plans, this I teach, and I go on to 
set forth several causes which may exist throughout the universe for the 
motions of stars ; one of which however must in this world also be the 
cause that imparts lively motion to the signs ; but to dictate which of 
them it is, is by no means the duty of the man who advances step by 
step. 

Memmius, that friend of the poet to whom the poem is 
inscribed and addressed, must have felt embarrassingly free 
to choose, among so many proffered alternatives of explanation 
— all about equally good. If he was of a poetical turn, as 
there is grave reason to fear he was not, he probably pre- 



Lucretius. 167 



ferred — we do, we confess — among the various conjectures 
proposed by Lucretius, the pleasing bucolic view of the case, 
the idea, namely, that the stars are at large in a kind of 
celestial pasture, that they " glide on of themselves, going 
whithersoever the food of each calls and invites them, feed- 
ing their flamy bodies everywhere throughout heaven." 

The intrepid poet does not shrink from attacking, in the 
sixth book, the problem of thunder and lightning. He pro- 
ceeds on an easier plan than that adopted so long after by 
Franklin. Instead of going out in a thunder-storm, to try, 
as Franklin did, a dangerous experiment with the clouds, 
Lucretius retires into the safe recesses of his own mind and 
evolves his explanation on a priori principles. If the facts of 
nature chanced not to correspond with the theory, why, so 
much the worse for the facts. In the case, however, of Lu- 
cretius, the poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, must have seen 
things in the sky that perhaps escaped the ken of the more 
practical American philosopher. Otherwise, how could the 
poet have described, with such power as is displayed in the 
passage we are about to quote ? (It is uniformly the incom- 
parable prose translation of Munro, whenever the form is 
prose in which we present Lucretius.) One imagines Mem- 
mius " burning with high hope " of true enlightenment at 
last, as he reads the fair and fine promise of explanation, and 
no mistake this time, with which his poet-friend committed 
himself in the prefatory words now following : 

And now in what way these [thunderbolts] are begotten and are 
formed with a force so resistless as to be able with their stroke to burst 
asunder towers, throw down houses, wrench away beams and rafters, 
and cast down and burn up the monuments of men, to strike men dead, 
prostrate cattle far and near, by what force they can do all this and the 
like, I will make clear and will not longer detain you with mere pro- 
fessions. 

Thunderbolts we must suppose to be begotten out of dense clouds 
piled up high ; for they are never sent forth at all when the sky is clear 
or when the clouds are of a slight density. . , . 



1 68 College Latin Course in English. 

I have shown above [in a passage not here reproduced] that hollow 
clouds have very many seeds of heat, and they must also take many in 
from the sun's rays and their heat. On this account when the same wind 
which happens to collect them into any one place, has forced out many 
seeds of heat and has mixed itself up with that fire, then the eddy of 
wind forces a way in and whirls about in the straitened room and points 
the thunderbolt in the fiery furnaces within ; for it is kindled in two ways 
at once : it is heated by its own velocity and from the contact of fire. 
After that, when the force of the wind has been thoroughly heated and 
the impetuous power of the fire has entered in, then the thunderbolt 
fully forged, as it were, suddenly rends the cloud, and their heat put in 
motion is carried on traversing all places with flashing lights. Close 
upon it follows so heavy a clap that it seems to crush down from above 
the quarters of heaven which have all at once sprung asunder. Then a 
trembling violently seizes the earth and rumblings run through high 
heaven ; for the whole body of the storm then without exception quakes 
with the shock and loud roarings are aroused. After this shock follows 
so heavy and copious a rain that the whole ether seems to be turning 
into rain and then to be tumbling down and returning to a deluge; So 
great a flood of it is discharged by the bursting of the cloud and the 
storm of wind, when the sound flies forth from the burning stroke. At 
times too the force of the wind aroused from without falls on a cloud 
hot with a fully forged thunderbolt ; and when it has burst it, forthwith 
there falls down yon fiery eddying whirl which in our native speech we 
call a thunderbolt. . . . 

The velocity of thunderbolts is great and their stroke powerful, and 
they run through their course with a rapid descent, because their force 
when aroused first in all cases collects itself in the clouds and gathers 
itself up for a great effort at starting ; then when the cloud is no longer 
able to hold the increased moving power, their force is pressed out and 
therefore flies with a marvellous moving power, like to that with which 
missiles are carried when discharged from powerful engines. Then too 
the thunderbolt consists of small and smooth elements, and such a nat- 
ure it is not easy for any thing to withstand ; for it flies between and 
passes in through the porous passages ; therefore it is not checked and 
delayed by many collisions, and for this reason it glides and flies on 
with a swift moving power. . . . 

It passes too through things without injuring them, and leaves many 
things quite whole after it has gone through, because the clear bright fire 
flies through by the pores. And it breaks to pieces many things, when 
the first bodies of the thunderbolt have fallen exactly on the first bodies 



Lucretius. 169 



of these things, at the points where they are intertwined and held to- 
gether. Again it easily melts brass and fuses gold in an instant, be- 
cause its force is formed of bodies minutely small and of smooth ele- 
ments, which easily make their way in and when they are in, .in a moment 
break up all the knots and untie the bonds of union. 

It has gone with us much against the grain, to condense at 
all the powerful passage from which the foregoing extracts 
have been taken. Lucretius certainly had a genius for de- 
scription more magnificent than Virgil could boast — more 
magnificent, perhaps, than any other ancient poet whatever. 
It must, we think, be evident to every reader, that the poet 
tends often to get the better of the philosopher, with Lucre- 
tius. The complacency, however, with which Lucretius re- 
garded his treatment of the present matter considered as 
pure science, is unmistakable : 

This is the way to see into the true nature of the thunderbolt and to 
understand by what force it produces each effect. 

Through a page or so following, Lucretius laughs merci- 
lessly at the idea of Jupiter's being launcher of thunderbolts 
— Jupiter, and his fellow-Olympians. "Why aim they at 
solitary places," he asks, "and spend their labor in vain? 
Or are they then practicing their arms and strengthening 
their sinews ? " It reads not unlike Elijah chaffing the 
prophets of Baal. We wish we had room to give here the 
raking and riddling fire of sarcastic interrogation with which, 
at his leisure, Lucretius pursues and persecutes his afflicted 
theme. He triumphs and glories in jubilant atheism — more 
exactly, in rioting anti-Olympianism. Mr. Sellar, in his " Ro- 
man Poetry of the Republic " (and in his " Roman Poetry of 
the Empire," as well, comparing Virgil with Lucretius, ami 
exploring the indebtedness of the former to the latter), gives 
large space to the discussion of the De Rerum Natura. We 
observe that Mr. Sellar is inclined, as we ourselves have 
been, to shrink from imputing positive atheism to Lucretius. 



170 College Latin Course in English. 

It is to "the gods," rather than to God, that Lucretius op- 
poses himself so fiercely. 

We could present explanations more whimsical, and there- 
fore more amusing, than those which we have selected ; but 
we have no disposition to make apparently ridiculous a writer 
inherently so worthy of respect, as is this great Roman poet. 
Atheist he was; but the gods whom he denied were the gods 
of Olympus. He hated religion ; but the religion that he 
hated was the hateful religion of Greece and of Rome. Who 
can say how Lucretius might have borne himself toward the 
unknown God, had there, in his time, been the apostle Paul 
to declare to him that God; how Lucretius might have borne 
himself toward Christianity, could he have met, in Christian- 
ity, a system of doctrine not less intensely, — and so much more 
effectively ! — hostile to Olympianism than was the Lucretian 
philosophy itself? 

It is needless to say that Lucretius was a thorough-paced 
materialist. Death with him ended all. Powerful, and drear- 
ily powerful, not untouched with pathos, is the strain in 
which he announces and reasons this dreadful creed — as will 
amply show the following stanzas of translation by Mr. 
Mallock : 

Death is for us then but a noise and name, 
Since the mind dies, and hurts us not a jot ; 

And as in bygone times when Carthage came 
To battle, we and ours were troubled not, 

Nor heeded though the whole earth's shuddering frame 
Reeled with the stamp of armies, and the lot 

Of things was doubtful, to which lords should fall 

The land and seas and all the rule of all ; 

So, too, when we and ours shall be no more, 
And there has come the eternal separation 

Of flesh and spirit, which, conjoined before, 
Made us ourselves, there will be no sensation ; 

We should not hear were all the world at war ; 
Nor shall we, in its last dilapidation, 



Lucretius. 171 



When the heavens fall, and earth's foundations flee : 
We shall nor feel, nor hear, nor know, nor sC 

That indestructible instinct in man, by virtue of which he 
divinely " doubts against the sense, " and, in spite of appear- 
ance, still dreams of "soul surviving breath," Lucretius rec- 
ognizes, and deals with, as follows : 

Perplexed he argues, from the fallacy 

Of that surviving self not wholly freed. 
Hence he bewails his bitter doom — to die ; 

Nor does he see that when he dies indeed, 
No second he will still remain to cry, 

Watching its own cold body burn or bleed. 
O fool ! to fear the wild-beast's ravening claw, 
Or that torn burial of its mouth and maw. 

For lo ! if this be fearful, let me learn 

Is it more fearful than if friends should place 

Thy decent limbs upon the pyre and burn 
Sweet frankincense ? or smother up thy face 

With honey in the balm-containing urn ? 
Or if you merely lay beneath the rays 

Of heaven on some cold rock ? or damp and cold 

If on thine eyelids lay a load of mold ? 

' Thou not again shalt see thy dear home's door, 
Nor thy dear wife and children come to throw 

Their arms round thee, and ask for kisses more, 
And through thy heart make quiet comfort go : 

Out of thy hands hath slipped the precious store 
Thou hoardedst for thine own,' men say, ' and lo, 

All thou desired is gone ! ' but never say, 

'All the desire as well hath passed away.' 

Ah, could they only see this, and could borrow 

True words, to tell what things in death abide thee ! 

'Thou shalt lie soothed in sleep that knows no morrow 
Nor ever cark nor care again betide thee : 

Friend, thou wilt say thy long good-bye to sorrow, 
And ours will be the pangs, who weep beside thee, 

And watch thy dear familiar body burn, 

And leave us but the ashes and-the urn.' 



172 College Latin Course in English. 

How different that from the " divine philosophy " of the 
In Memoriam of Tennyson ! 

We should be glad, did room permit, to present here, for 
our farewell extract from the Roman poet, the important 
passage in which Lucretius versifies the famous description 
given by Thucydides of the great plague at Athens. With 
this passage of translated realistic description, unfinished, the 
unfinished poem of Lucretius, advanced to near the close of 
its sixth book, abruptly ends. The description was intro- 
duced by way of illustrating the Lucretian theory of the 
propagation of disease by the diffusion of germs, seed-atoms 
— almost an anticipation of modern medical science on this 
subject — certainly a very natural application of the Lucretian 
atomic theory. 

We just now suggested a contrast between Lucretius and 
Tennyson. But the real contrast lies less, perhaps, between 
the two poets themselves, than between the different envi- 
roning moral and intellectual atmospheres in which the 
two poets lived and did their work. Indeed, Lucretius and 
Tennyson seem almost to be brethren in genius and temper- 
ament. Tennyson is perhaps the one living English mind 
who could, by exchange of time and place, conceivably have 
mingled poetry and philosophy, in a production like the De 
Rerum Natura of Lucretius. 

With emphasis, in dismissing the subject of this chap- 
ter, we call attention to the remarkable poem, entitled " Lu- 
cretius," of Tennyson. For the full understanding of that 
poem, one needs to remember the tradition transmitted by 
St. Jerome, the Latin Christian father (the sole tradition 
extant concerning Lucretius's end), to the effect that his wife, 
jealous of him, for whatever reason — perhaps only because he 
made himself too much the bridegroom of his vocation as phi- 
losopher and poet — resorted to a professor of magic arts and 
procured a potion supposed of power to win for herself her 
husband's love. This love-philter, administered without the 



Lucretius. 173 



poet's knowledge, worked a madness in bis brain, under the 
influence of which, in the prime of manhood, at forty-seven 
years of age, he committed suicide. It may confidently be 
said that the man most deeply studied in Lucretius's own 
poetry, will be the man most deeply impressed with the mar- 
velous truth and power of the English poet's work. Tenny- 
son's whole poem is worthy of the most studious attention 
from those who would enter into the secret of Lucretius. 
To such inquirers, that poem will prove a master-key of 
interpretation for their author, supplied by a great and 
kindred genius. 



V. 
HORACE. 



Horace is not one of the great poets of the world. But 
he is, emphatically, one of the best known. He does not 
overawe us with a vastness in his genius. But he satisfies us 
with far-sought perfection in his workmanship. If Homer, 
if Virgil, if Dante, if Milton, are each like a great statue, 
like a Phidian Jove — Horace is like an exquisite cameo, de- 
lighting us, not with mass, but with fineness, not with ma- 
jesty, but with grace. His lines are not large, but they 
are clean and clear. You may use the microscope and dis- 
cover no flaw. One must not look for the great thought 
that "strikes along the brain and flushes all the cheek." To 
this height Horace does not aspire. One must not even look 
for plenitude and variety of wisdom. Horace is wise, but 
he is narrowly, he is, as it were, penuriously, wise. He is 
worldly-wise. His reflections cling faithfully to the ground. 
Occasionally there is a bold stretch of wing, and a rising as 
if to try the eagle's flight. But the poet soon recollects him- 
self, and descends, with conscious grace of self-control, to 
the safe lower level that he loves. 



174 College Latin Course i?i English. 

Horace's odes are, many of them, perhaps the most of 
them, occasional poems. Few escape the quality that thus 
naturally belongs to them as being done to order. They are 
works of labor, quite as much as works of love. But then 
Horace's genius was so well trained, so obedient to its owner's 
will, that there is no revolt at task-work apparent. Deliber- 
ateness almost becomes spontaneousness. The artist's de- 
light in execution almost becomes equivalent to the poet's 
delight in conception. Art, in short, is nature, with Horace. 

It follows from this character in Horace, that he suffers 
more than most other poets from translation. There is not, 
and there cannot be, any adequate transcript, in another lan- 
guage, of his verse. Thought, image, you can translate, but 
you cannot translate form. And form is more, than is any 
thing besides form, in Horace's odes. There is considerable 
monotony of topic and sentiment. And the sentiments that 
keep recurring are not very numerous, not very profound, 
not very novel. They are in truth the obvious, the com- 
monplace itself, of pagan life. * Life is short, is uncertain. 
Death ends all. It is not best to fret. Take things as they 
come. Be contented. Moderation is wisdom. Keep the 
golden mean. Wealth will not make you happy.' These 
ideas revolve constantly into view, as you read the odes of 
Horace. But you do not see them in this bareness and bald- 
ness. As in a kaleidoscope, they undergo various permuta- 
tion of arrangement and they take on beauty, when Horace 
sings them for you in his verse. This magician in metre 
could go on repeating himself forever, and the repetition 
should never weary you. You would scarcely think of its 
being repetition — this continuous flow from form to form 
of the same ideas, in the shaken kaleidoscope of Horace's 
verse. 

The experience we describe belongs, however, exclusively 
to the man reading the original Latin itself. No art of trans- 
lation can make an equivalent experience possible to the 



Horace. 175 



reader of Horace in English. The Latin scholar finds the 
very aspect of the Horatian verse a refection to the eye. It 
is like looking at the fine lines of a perfect medallion, or a 
gem exquisitely engraved. Not in the whole course of this 
series of volumes, has been encountered any author, from 
whom so great a proportion of his individual quality is lost, 
as is lost from Horace, in an English translation. A dis- 
couraging statement, do you say? Perhaps, say we in reply; 
but one obtains a truer impression of Horace by knowing 
this, to begin with, about him, than would be possible with 
any illusion in the mind of the contrary. What we have 
said applies, however, to the properly lyrical productions of 
Horace. His satires and his epistles are capable of being 
translated with less loss. 

Horace is chiefly his own biographer. We know little, 
and there is little that we need to know, of his life, beyond 
what his writings reveal. Horace is a perfectly frank egotist, 
the best-bred and the most agreeable of the tribe. He does 
not scruple to write himself, anywhere it may happen, into 
his verse. His audience were almost ail of them personally 
known to the poet. He met them familiarly, at the court of 
Augustus, or on the streets, and in the baths, of Rome. He 
held a well-established and a universally recognized position, 
as the laureate of the empire and the lyrist and the satirist 
of Roman society. His natural complaisance was well sup- 
ported by an unperturbed complacency. He went smiling 
through his easy and fortunate experience of life, the hap- 
piest, or the least unhappy, of Romans. He was a courtier ; 
but never was courtier compelled to pay less for what he 
enjoyed, than was Horace. To Horace's honor let it be also 
recorded, that never perhaps was successful courtier less 
inclined to pay any thing that could justly be judged misbe- 
coming to himself. With apparently faultless suavity in man- 
ner, he maintained an entire manliness of bearing toward his 
patron Maecenas and his emperor Augustus. It reflects 



176 College Latin Course in English. 

credit, almost equally, both upon patronizer and patronized, 
this admirable relation, steadfastly sustained on the one side, 
and scrupulously respected on the other, between the freed- 
man bachelor poet and those two high-placed formidable 
friends of his. 

Freedman, we say, but Horace was removed by one 
generation from the freedman's condition. It was his father 
that had once been a slave and from being a slave had been 
raised to a freedman. Horace praised his father with rea- 
son. The son owed much to the father. Freedman though 
he was, the elder Horace had ideas that became a Roman 
citizen. He gave his boy the best chance that Rome could 
supply. He tasked his own resources to situate him well 
and to educate him as if he were the son of a Roman knight. 
According to the easy ethical standard that prevailed at 
Rome, possibly above that standard, Horace's father and, 
after him, Horace, seem to have been both of them true and 
good men. This does not mean that bachelor Horace kept 
himself unspotted, either in life, or in his verse. Mo, he did 
things, and he wrote things, that only to mention would now 
be an offense. The world is already somewhat better, when 
it is under sense of compulsion to seem to be better. And 
Christianity, since Horace's time, has at least enforced on 
vice a heavy fine in the form of fair pretense. Vice must 
now put on, however loth, a mask of virtue. 

Horace, as a young man, was not incapable of enthusiasm. 
He experienced an attack of such emotion, at the time when, 
Caesar having been slain, there was a moment of promise 
that the Republic would be restored. He joined the repub- 
licans and fought on their side at Philippi. In one of his 
odes, he alludes, with not unthrifty humor, to his conduct on 
the occasion. He threw away his shield, he says, and ran 
for dear life. In such frank raillery at his own expense, he 
had perhaps his purpose. His republicanism, he would have 
it understood, was not serious enough to be either dangerous 



Horace. 



177 



or offensive to the conquerors. Horace left the ardor of 
enthusiasm behind him with his youth. Never, so far as 
we know, after that affair at Philippi, did he do any thing out 
of the safely moderate and regular. He did not cravenly fling 
away his spirit, but he kept his spirit in good training. He was, 
we say, a prosperous courtier; still he remained a man ycu 
could respect. If Maecenas hinted to him that he did not show 
himself enough at Rome, Horace replied, with perfect 
temper, that he had his reasons, and that he would rather 
resign the bounty that he owed to the grace of the great 
minister, than leave the country for the city when those 
reasons forbade. Maecenas had given 
him a modest estate of land in the Sa- 
bine country, for which Horace — he 
having, as republican, lost his all through 
confiscation — was properly grateful to 
his patron. He addressed Maecenas in 
many appreciative and laudatory odes. 
He paid similar tribute to Augustus; 
but not through any gracious imperial 
condescension, did Augustus prevail to 
beguile the wary poet into one moment's 
perilous parting with the subject's safe 
and proper distance from the sovereign. 
Horace basked continuously and blessedly in the sunshine 
of court favor, never once pushed off for discipline into the 
outward cold, but also never once tempted too near into the 
scorching heat. The remaining incidents and relations of 
his life will sufficiently come out, by occasion, in connec- 
tion with the pieces that we shall bring forward to illustrate 
his genius. 

Horace's poems are classified as odes, epodes, satires, and 

epistles. (" Epode " is a name never used by Horace himself. 

Dr. Frieze, the learned professor of Latin in the University 

of Michigan, in a private note to the present writer, explains 

8* 




M^CENAS. 



178 College Latin Course in English. 

that the manuscript-multipliers, after Quintilian's time, 
somewhat loosely gave the name of epodes to the whole 
series of Horace's satirical lyrics, from the general resem- 
blance of these poems to the epodic poems of the Greek 
Archilochus, which latter were characterized by a metrical 
peculiarity consisting either of a short line [e7rwddc, " add- 
song or appended verse"] following a longer, or else of. a 
mixed line following one purely iambic). 

The odes are most of them very short. Those, for in- 
stance, of the first book (there are four books in all) average 
hardly more than five stanzas, four lines to the stanza, apiece. 
A book of Horace's odes would thus, for average length of 
the pieces contained in it, be somewhat like a volume of 
Watts's or Wesley's hymns as originally written. The stanza 
is prevailingly either Sapphic or Alcaic. Horace was like 
Roman writers generally in being open debtor to the Greek. 
He subdued the difficult metres he borrowed, with signal 
success, to his use. 

The first ode is inscribed to Maecenas. It is not boldly 
eulogistic, though, all the more agreeably, eulogy is implied. 
It simply says, ' Every man to his taste ; I, for my part, like 
to make verses. Rank me thou, Maecenas, among thy lyric 
bards, and I shall be supremely proud and happy.' 

The second ode is a tribute to Caesar Augustus. In it 
occurs the famous phrase, so familiar in quotation, Serus in 
cesium redeas ! (' Late return thou to the skies ! ') The em- 
peror is begged by the poet indulgently to cherish a fond- 
ness for being styled father and prince to his people. 

The third ode is addressed to the ship that was to bear 
Virgil setting out for Athens. The wind is charged to bring 
him safely home. It takes but two stanzas out of the ten 
composing the ode, to express adequately this sentiment of 
the poet's. The other eight stanzas are occupied with the 
suggested idea of the daring of man in attempting navigation 
of the dreadful sea. There is no return to what, from the 



Horace. 179 



title of the ode, should seem the proper controlling motive to 
the poem. We venture to think the ode wanting in unity 
and consistency of interest. It breathes perhaps of Pindar, 
in its bold following of far suggestion. Here are the two 
opening stanzas, those in which alone there is allusion to 
Virgil. We give them in the version of Dr. Philip Francis, 
an admirable, and formerly a very popular, work : 

So may the Cyprian queen divine, 
And the twin stars with saving lustre shine ; 

So may the father of the wind 
All others, but the western breezes, bind. 

As you, dear vessel, safe restore 
Th' intrusted pledge to the Athenian shore, 

And of my soul the partner save, 
My much-loved Virgil, from the raging wave. 

Tennyson, in the In Memoriam, similarly apostrophizes the 
ship to which was consigned, for restoration to England, 
the dust of his dead friend, Arthur Henry Hallam. Read- 
ers will find the parallel interesting. The two poems 
finely illustrate the contrast between the characteristically 
modern, and the characteristically ancient, spirit in poetry. 
Wordsworth's noble sonnet of farewell to Walter Scott 
bound to Italy from Scotland, is another interesting paral- 
lel to this ode of Horace's. 

Plorace's odes have offered a subject always very tempting 
to translators. We doubt whether any English version of his 
works entire is, on the whole, superior to that of Dr. Francis. 
But every age has to do its own work in this kind. Fashions 
in literature are very changeful and fleeting. Already Dr. 
Francis is a little obsolete. Mr. Theodore Martin — Sir 
Theodore, we may call him now — has translated Horace's 
works, and done it well. But his version has the serious fault 
of diluting the characteristic concentration of the original 
poet. It has too, here and there, such technical faults as 
naturally attach — we may perhaps without offense in the 



180 College Latin Course in English. 

present case say it — to any workmanship but the highest in 
verse. For instance, in the first stanza of the ode just 
cited, it rhymes " Helen " with "quelling." Professor Con- 
ington, whose prose version, and whose version in verse, of 
Virgil are beyond praise admirable, has given us the odes of 
Horace in good translation — good, but by no means supreme- 
ly felicitous. The satires and epistles he has not, we be- 
lieve, translated. There is, besides, a translation of Horace 
from the versatile and industrious hand of Bulwer-Lytton. 
This, though highly creditable to the Englishman's scholar- 
ship and skill,, is rather elaborate than successful. Its fatal 
lack is lack of rhythm and lyrical flow. On the whole, we 
shall adopt the plan of going about from English hand to 
hand, to cull the best that may be found for each particular 
case as it arises. There is, it should be added, a prose ver- 
sion, in purpose strictly literal (enriched with copious in- 
structive notes from a different source) by Mr. Smart. This 
is accessible in a cheap American reprint from the press of 
the Harpers. It will serve to illustrate the mission that 
Horace, by eminence among all ancient poets, has fulfilled, 
in furnishing exercise and solace to cultivated minds the 
most variously placed, if we mention further a version here, 
a version in metre, of his odes, produced by Captain Henry 
Hubbard Pierce, U. S. A. This version was published 
posthumously, only last year, under the loyal supervision of 
the gifted author's wife. It adds to its own proper attrac- 
tions the charm of a choicely written introductory letter to 
the translator, from his accomplished former instructor in 
Latin, Professor Henry S. Frieze. Professor Frieze con- 
gratulates his friend on achieving the "first American trans- 
lation" of Horace's odes. There is not wanting a certain 
pathetic associative spell of remoteness, in the date which 
the translator affixes to his preface : " Head-quarters, Twenty- 
first Infantry, Vancouver Barracks, W. T." 

The fourth ode furnishes one of those familiar quotations 



Horace. 181 



of which Horace is a famously abundant source of supply- 
to literature. There is a solemn roll, as of muffled drums, a 
solemn beat, as of slow footsteps keeping time, in the rhythm 
of the original verse, which no translation reproduces. We 
are not sure but plain prose translation, closely literal, will 
here be the best reflex of Horace's sense and sound : "Pale 
death, with equal foot, knocks at the cottages of the poor and 
at the palaces of kings." The sentiment indeed is common- 
place, but the Horatian expression seems to the Latinist in- 
imitable. Professor Tyler, in his incomparable "History of 
American Literature," cites from John Wise, forgotten Pu- 
ritan minister of Mather's time, 17 17, — forgotten, but most 
worthy, by his noble gift of utterance, to have been remem- 
bered and admired — a passage in which that great preacher 
evidently recalls his Horace. With fine rhetorical freedom 
of paraphrase, " Death," he says, " observes no ceremony, but 
knocks as loud at the barriers of the court as at the door of 
the cottage." 

The next ode is one of Horace's amatory pieces. These, 
in general, are justly not very pleasing to the modern 
taste. Horace seemed to know nothing of women, except by 
the less favorable specimens of their sex. The fifth ode, 
however, is a comparatively innocent erotic effusion. It en- 
joys exceptional English fame from having been translated 
by Milton. Milton's Puritan conscience and imagination 
have unconsciously almost moralized the ode in rendering it» 
No English translator of Horace can ever pass this ode of 
his poet, without dipping his colors to Milton as he goes by. 
In his earlier editions, Professor Conington simply adopted 
Milton' s rendering, without attempting any independent 
version of his own. Mr. Theodore Martin, incidentally in a 
note, calls Milton's rendering an " overrated " piece of work 
— a judgment, on his part, rather bold than wise. Here is 
Milton's version — a little difficult perhaps, but not more dif- 
ficult than the original : 



College Latin Course in English. 



What slender youth, bedew'd with liquid odours, 
Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave, 

Pyrrlia? For whom bind'st thou 
In wreaths thy golden hair, 
Plain in thy neatness ? O, how oft shall he 
On faith and changed gods complain, and seas 

Rough with black winds, and storms 

Unwonted, shall admire ! 
Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold, 
Who always vacant, always amiable 

Hopes thee, of flattering gales 

Unmindful. Hapless they 
To whom thou untried seem'st fair ! Me in my vow'd 
Picture, the sacred wall declares to have hung 

My dank and drooping weeds 

To the stern god of sea. 



Milton's version is remarkably close and literal. In dis- 
pensing with rhyme, it follows the original. Its observable 
similarity to the Latin, in metre and in stanza, is an illusion, 
but an effective illusion. It works its effect to the reader, 
through his eye, rather than through his ear. 

We shall give later another specimen or two of Horace's 
erotic verse. We may here remark that one ode in par- 
ticular, of this species, presents the writer in a light that is 
even hideously repulsive. It taunts a faded fair with the 
loss of her bloom, in a strain of brutality, not, we grieve to 
say, so peculiar to ancient Roman and pagan morals and 
manners, but that a parallel could be found in modern, and 
nominally Christian, English literature. The coarseness and 
the selfishness which disfigure this ancient poem, belong, we 
judge, to sensuality as sensuality, whatever may happen to 
be the age of the sensuality, or its race, or its surrounding 
atmosphere. Several pieces of Horace are so undisguisedly 
gross that the English translator, even be his conscience 
tolerably free from squeam, is obliged to omit them entirely. 

Horace, with just self-judgment, disclaims aspiration to 



Horace. 183 



epic dignity for his muse — as follows (Mr. Martin inter- 
preter) : 

Such themes, Agrippa, never hath 

My lyre essay'd, nor bold 
Pelides' unrelenting wrath, 
Nor artfullest Ulysses' path 

O'er oceaas manifold ; 

Nor woes of Pelops' fated line ; 

Such flights too soaring are S 
Nor doth my bashful Muse incline, 
Great Caesar's eulogies and thine 

With its thin notes to mar. 

Heart-whole, or pierced by Cupid's sting, 

In careless mirthfulness, 
Of banquets we, and maidens sing, 
With nails cut closely skirmishing, 

When lovers hotly press. 

Probably Horace here was consciously jocular, in part, at 
his own expense, writing with a sudden surprising turn or 
drop, at last, in tone, for humorous effect. "With nails cut 
closely," is a somewhat enigmatical phrase. Some take it 
for pure pleasantry, some as being metaphorically expressive 
of neat literary finish. 

A parallel, interesting for coincidence as well as for con- 
trast, is that between odes of invitation, like the ninth of 
Horace, first book (also the twelfth, fourth book), and the 
sonnets of invitation by Milton, inscribed respectively, " To 
Mr. Laurence " and " To Cyriack Skinner." Horace (ac- 
cording to Mr. Martin again) : 

Pile up fresh logs upon the hearth, 

To thaw the nipping cold, 
And foi-th from Sabine jar, to wing 
Our mirth, the ruddy vine-juice bring 

Four mellowing summers old. 



184 College Latin Course in English. 



Let not to-morrow's change or chance 

Perplex thee, but as gain 
Count each new day ! Let beauty's glance 
Engage thee, and the merry dance, 

Nor deem such pleasures vain ! 

The other ode of invitation just mentioned is additionally 
interesting as being addressed to Virgil. Virgil and Horace 
were fast friends. Tennyson's epistolary poem to his friend, 
F. D. Maurice, may also be compared. Horace half-play- 
fully, half in good earnest, conditions his invitation to Virgil. 
Virgil must bring some rare perfume, to pay for the rich 
wine that will be broached on the occasion at Horace's ex- 
pense. The Romans were as fond of fragrance, as of flavor, 
at their feasts. Horace now (translated by Mr. Martin) : 

Yes, a small box of nard from the stores of Sulpicius 

A cask shall elicit, of potency rare 
To endow with fresh hopes, dewy-bright and delicious, 

And wash from our hearts every cobweb of care. 

If you'd dip in such joys, come — the better the quicker !— 
But remember the fee — for it suits not my ends, 

To let you make havoc, scot-free, with my liquor, 
As though I were one of your heavy-pursed friends. 

To the winds with base lucre and pale melancholy ! — 
In the flames of the pyre these, alas! will be vain, 

Mix your sage ruminations with glimpses of folly, — 
'Tis delightful at times to be somewhat insane ! 

Milton unbends in a manner very different from the fore- 
going. His conscience never lets up even in his most relaxed 
literary moods. Horace did not keep a conscience. He 
was simply a man of honor, as the world went, the world of 
his day and place. 

We shall not have room in this volume to make a separate 
presentation of the poet Catullus. (" No Latin writer is so 



Horace. 185 



Greek," says Macaulay in his Journal.) We, therefore, with 
a sense of satisfaction in making some compensation for that 
unavoidable defect, give here a graceful bit of pleasantry, 
gracefully translated by Mr. Martin, out of Catullus's bright, 
but not too pure, poetic productions. It is a witty invitation 
to dinner, with the guest festively warned to bring his own 
fare: 

You dine with me, dear Argentine, 

On Friday next, at half past two ; 
And I can pi-omise that you'll dine 

As well as man need wish to do — 
If you bring with you, when you come 

A dinner of the very best, 
And lots of wine, and mirth, and some 

Fair girl, to give the whole a zest. 
'Tis if you bring these — mark me now ! 

That you're to have the best of dinners, 
For your Catullus' purse, I vow, 

Has nothing in't but long-legged spinneis. 
But if you don't, you'll have to fast 
On simple welcome and thin air ; 
And, as a sauce to our repast, 

I'll treat you to a perfume rare ; — 
A perfume so divine, 'tis odds, 

When you have smelt its fragrance, whether 
You won't devoutly pray the gods, 

To make you straight all nose together. 

Another poem to Virgil, very different from the one last quot- 
ed, is the famous twenty-fourth ode of the first book — a lyric of 
sorrow and consolation, on occasion of the death of a com- 
mon beloved friend. There is not, there cannot be, any 
adequate rendering of this fine ode. " What shame should 
there.be, or limit, to the sense of loss indulged for so dear a 
head ? " — thus Horace begins. " So then Quinctilius, the 
perpetual slumber plies ! " " Quinctilius — to him, ah, when 
will Purity, and — sister she to Justice — inviolate Faith, and 
Truth unclad, find ever any equal ? " How bald, how harsh, 



1 86 College Latin Course i?i English. 

the literal English of the consummate Latin looks! The 
charm dwells in the first perfect form. It is felt there by the 
scholar, but it is not, we suppose, transferable thence to any- 
other than he. We have known an inimitably fine effect to 
be produced by apt quotation of the first two stanzas, un- 
translated, of this ode, for an occasion, the academic atmos- 
phere of which made the classic Latin itself appropriate. 

A very vengeful allusion to Cleopatra — vengeful, but re- 
lenting at last into Roman admiration of the spirit she dis- 
played in her disaster, in daring suicidal death as preferable 
to the disgrace of being driven in triumph through the streets 
of Rome — occurs in the thirty-seventh of the first book of 
odes. It will remind our readers of Tennyson's stanzas on 
the same subject, in his Dream of Fair Women. Here are 
the concluding stanzas (according to Dr. Francis) ' 

With fearless hand she dared to grasp 

The writhings of the wrathful asp, 

And suck the poison through her veins, 
Resolved on death, and fiercer from its pains. 

Then scorning to be led the boast 

Of mighty Caesar's naval host, 

And arm'd with more than mortal spleen, 
Defrauds a triumph, and expires a queen. 

The monotone, of what we may paradoxically call the 
Horatian optimistic pessimism, comes out strikingly in an ode 
to Dellius, the third of the second book. ' Let the thought of 
death impending keep your mind even, between opposite 
extremes, of depression and elation,' is the sentiment of the 
poem. In reading the brief passage about to be given, one 
should remember that the ancient custom was to cast lots by 
placing the names of the persons concerned in a vessel and 
shaking them smartly together, until some name should leap 
out. The boat spoken of is the boat in which Charon ferried 
the dead across the river Styx to the land of "eternal exile." 
"We are all of us driven the one way (Omnes eodem cog- 






Horace. 187 



tmur) ; for us all, is shaken in the urn the lot sooner or later 
destined to issue forth and us for our eternal exile to em- 
bark upon the boat." But again it is the Horatian form, 
not the commonplace Horatian thought, that gives its value 
to the verse. 

The tenth of the second book is too characteristic of the 
writer, too good in itself, too celebrated, and it has been by 
the poet Cowper too happily translated, not to be given by us 
here entire. It is a eulogy of the " golden mean ": 

Receive, dear friends, the truths I teach, 
So shalt thou live beyond the reach 

Of adverse Fortune's power ; 
Not always tempt the distant deep, 
Nor always timorously creep 

Along the treacherous shore. 

He that holds fast the golden mean 
And lives contentedly between 

The little and the great, 
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor, 
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door, 

Imbittering all his state. 

The tallest pines feel most the power 
Of wintry blasts ; the loftiest tower 

Comes heaviest to the ground ; 
The bolts that spare the mountain's side 
His cloud-capt eminence divide, 

And spread the ruin round. 

The well-informed philosopher 
Rejoices with a wholesome fear, 

And hopes in spite of pain ; 
If winter bellow from the north 
Soon the sweet spring comes dancing forth, 

And Nature laughs again. 

What if thine heaven be overcast? 
The dark appearance will not last ; 



1 88 College Latin Course in English. 

Expect a brighter sky. 
The god that strings a silver bow 
Awakes sometimes the Muses too, 

And lays his arrows by. 

If hindrances obstruct thy way, 
Thy magnanimity display, 

And let thy strength be seen : 
But O ! if Fortune fill thy sail 
With more than a propitious gale, 

Take half thy canvas in. 

Christian Cowper was unable to translate so earth-bound 
a poetic philosophy of life as the foregoing, without being 
moved to monitory reflection. He moralizes, in a rhymed 
sequel, as follows : 

And is this all? Can Reason do no more 

Than bid me shun the deep and dread the shore ? 

Sweet moralist ! afloat on life's rough sea, 

The Christian has an art unknown to thee : 

He holds no parley with unmanly fears ; 

Where duty bids he confidently steers, 

Faces a thousand dangers at her call, 

And, trusting in his God, surmounts them all. 

In the eleventh of the second book of odes, appears a 
touch, a mere touch, on the topic of advancing old age, that 
reminds one, by subtle association, of our own half-Horatian 
American poet of occasions, Oliver Wendell Holmes. We all 
know the humorous-pathetic fondness of Dr. Holmes's verse 
for this theme. And then, besides, the convivial spirit here 
conjoined is not alien to the parallel. Horace (according to 
Mr. Martin) : 



Say, why should we not, flung at ease 'neath this pine, 
Or a plane-tree's broad umbrage, quaff gayly our wine, 

While the odours of Syrian nard and the rose 

Breathe sweet from locks tipp'd, and just tipp'd, with Time's snows. 



Horace. 189 



There is not perhaps in literature any better brother to 
the genius of Horace than is the genius of Oliver Wendell 
Holmes. The same light touch, the same monotone of sen- 
timent, the same variety of treatment, the same gay spirit 
sustaining the same capacity of sadness, the same curious 
felicity of word and phrase, the same finish of art, belong to 
both poets alike. 

It was one of the fortunes of Horace's life to escape death, 
on a certain occasion, very narrowly, from the accidental 
falling of a tree. He makes the occurrence the subject of 
an ode, the thirteenth of the second book. The opening 
stanzas are maledictory. He thinks the planter of that tree 
must have been a man of many crimes, actual or potential. 
After an imaginary list of such, he says (Theodore Martin) : 

All this he must have done — or could — 

I'm sure — the wretch, that stuck thee down, 

Thou miserable stump of wood, 
To topple on thy master's crown, 

Who ne'er designed thee any harm, 

Here on my own, my favorite farm. 

A strain follows, of higher mood : 

How nearly in her realms of gloom 

I dusky Proserpine had seen, 
Seen ^Eacus dispensing doom, 

And the Elysian fields serene, 
Heard Sappho to her lute complain 
Of unrequited passion's pain: 

Heard thee, too, O Alcoeus, tell, 

Striking the while thy golden lyre, 
With fuller note and statelier swell, 

The sorrows and disasters dire 
Of warfare and the ocean deep, 
And those that far in exile weep. 

While shades round either singer throng, 

And the deserved tribute pay 
Of sacred silence to their song, 

Yet chiefly crowd to hear the lay 



i go College Latin Course in English. 

Of battles old to story known, 
And haughty tyrants overthrown. 

What wonder they, their ears to feast, 

Should thickly throng, when by these lays 

Entranced, the hundred-headed beast 
Drops his black ears in sweet amaze, 

And even the snakes are charmed, as they 

Among the Furies' tresses play. 

Nay even Prometheus, and the sire 

Of Pelops, cheated of their pains, 
Forget awhile their doom of ire 

In listening to the wondrous strains ; 
Nor doth Orion longer care 
To hunt the lynx or lion there. 

Allusion to this nigh-fatal tree recurs often throughout the 
odes. 

In the fifteenth of the second book of odes, Horace ap- 
pears as upbraider of his own degenerate times. He in- 
veighs against the growing luxury of private landscape gar- 
dening and architecture. Theodore Martin renders : 

It was not so when Romulus 

Our greatness fostered in its prime, 
Nor did our great forefathers thus, 

In unshorn Cato's simple time. 

Men's private fortunes then were low, 

The public income great ; in these 
Good times no long-drawn portico 

Caught for its lord the northern breeze. 

Nor did the laws our sires permit 

Sods dug at random to despise 
As for their daily homes unfit ; 

And yet they bade our cities rise 

More stately at the public charge, 

And did, to their religion true, 
The temples of the gods enlarge, 

And with fair-sculptured stone renew. 



Horace. 191 



There is a note struck here that rings in the sense like that 
querulous line of Wordsworth, 

Plain living and high thinking are no more ! 

The first ode of the third book, entitled " In Praise of Con- 
tentment," is in part a very fine variation of this. But the 
motive of the poem last alluded to — it is a motive familiar 
with Horace — is different. See the following extracts from 
Martin's rendering: 

Ye rabble rout, avaunt ! 

Your vulgar din give o'er, 
Whilst I, the Muses' own hierophant, 
To the pure ears of youths and virgins chant 

In strains unheard before ! 



The fish are conscious that a narrower bound 

Is drawn the seas around 
By masses huge hurl'd down into the deep ; 

There at the bidding of a lord, for whom 
Not all the land he owns is ample room, 
Do the contractor and his laborers heap 
Vast piles of stone, the ocean back to sweep. 
But let him climb in pride, 

That lord of halls unblest, 

Up to his lordly nest, 
Yet ever by his side 

Climb Terror and Unrest ; 
Within the brazen galley's sides 

Care, ever wakeful, flits, 
And at his back, when forth in state he rides, 

Her withering shadow sits. 

If thus it fare with all ; 
If neither marbles from the Phrygian mine 
Nor star-bright robes of purple and of pall 

Nor the Falei-nian vine, 
Nor costliest balsams, fetch'd from farthest Ind, 

Can soothe the restless mind ; 



192 College Latin Course in English. 

Why should I choose 
To rear on high, as modern spendthrifts use, 

A lofty hall, might be the home for kings, 
With portals vast, for Malice to abuse, 
Or Envy make her theme to point a tale ; 

Or why for wealth, which new-born trouble brings, 
Exchange my Sabine vale ? 

One of the happiest bits of Mr. Martin's workmanship 
chances to coincide with one of the most characteristic, and 
one of the best, felicities of the original master himself. We 
take a few stanzas out of the sixteenth of the second book 
of odes : 

He lives on little, and is blest, 
On whose plain board the bright 
Salt-cellar shines, which was his sires' delight, 

Nor terrors, nor cupidity's unrest, 
Disturb his slumbers light. 

Why should we still project and plan, 

We creatures of an hour? 

Why fly from clime to clime, new regions scour ? 
Where is the exile, who, since time began, 

To fly from self had power ? 

Fell care climbs brazen galleys' sides ; 
Nor troops of horse can fly 
Her foot, which than the stag's is swifter, ay, 

Swifter than Eurus, when he madly rides 
The clouds along the sky. 

Careless what lies beyond to know, 
And turning to the best 
The present, meet life's bitters with a jest, 

And smile them down ; since nothing here below 
Is altogether blest. 

In manhood's prime Achilles died, 

Tithonus by the slow 

Decay of age was wasted to a show, 
And Time may what it hath to thee denied 

On me perchance bestow. 



Horace. 193 

To me a farm of modest size, 

And slender vein of song, 

Such as in Greece flowed vigorous and strong, 
Kind fate hath given, and spirit to despise 

The base, malignant throng. 

There is Horace's philosophy of life, all of it summed up 
for you in a single ode. 

The celebrated Warren Hastings was a man of sufficient 
classic and literary culture to amuse himself gracefully in 
turning an ode of Horace into English verse. Relieved 
against the somewhat lurid light with which the eloquent 
invective of impeachment has surrounded his fame, the fol- 
lowing stanzas, from his rendering of the ode last shown our 
readers, possess a personal interest not without pathos. 
Hastings was on his home voyage from Bengal, in 1785, when 
he made this translation. He was coming unawares to the 
great trial that was so nearly to cost him his all. The trans- 
lation was addressed to a friend of the author's, Mr. Shore : 

Short is our span ; then why engage 

In schemes, for which man's transient age 

Was ne'er by fate design'd ? 
Why slight the gifts of Nature's hand ? 
What wanderer from his native land 

E'er left himself behind? 

To ripen'd age Clive lived renown'd, 
With lacs enrich'd, with honours crown'd, 

His valour's well-earn'd meed. 
Too long, alas ! he lived, to hate 
His envied lot ; and died too late 

From life's oppression freed. 

For me, oh Shore ! I only claim 
To merit, not to seek for fame ; 

The good and just to please : 
A state above the fear of want ; 
Domestic love, Heaven's choicest grant, 

Health, leisure^ peace, and ease, 



194 College Latin Course in English. 

The translation is a paraphrase rather than a translation. 
The substitution of Clive's name for that of Tithonus, was a 
freedom justified by the circumstances of the case. Hast- 
ings knew that he too himself had enemies, though he did 
not know to what extremities of self-defense they would, 
in no long time, reduce him. 

With the epicurean's optimistic pessimism exemplified in 
the foregoing ode, Horace united the Roman's thirst for 
posthumous fame. And of posthumous fame, an immortality 
of it, Horace was, in his own mind, not less sure, than was 
contemporary Ovid. The twentieth of the second book, in- 
scribed "To Maecenas," deals with this topic, expressing 
boldly the poet's confidence of his own future renown. We 
take, however, a shorter variation on the same theme, the 
thirtieth of the third book, a still more celebrated ode of 
Horace's, which is well rendered by Mr. Martin : 

I've reared a monument, my own, 

More durable than brass, 
Yea, kingly pyramids of stcne 

In height it doth surpass. 

Rain shall not sap, nor driving blast 

Disturb its settled base, 
Nor countless ages rolling past 

Its symmetry deface. 

I shall not wholly die. Some part 

Nor that a little, shall 
Escape the dark destroyer's dart, 

And his grim festival. 

For long as with his Vestals mute 

Rome's Ponlifex shall climb 
The Capitol, my fame shall shoot 

Fresh buds through future time. 

Where brawls loud Aufidus, and came 

Parch'd Daunus erst, a horde 
Of rustic boors to sway, my name 

Shall be a household word ; 



Horace. 195 

As one who rose from mean estate, 

The first with poet fire 
iEolic song to modulate 

To the Italian lyre. 

Then, grant, Melpomene, thy son 

Thy guerdon proud to wear, 
And Delphic laurels duly won 

Bind thou upon my hair! 

The Duke et decorum est pro patria mori, so familiar a quo- 
tation of patriotism, is a sentiment of Horace, occurring in the 
second of the third book of odes. The whole ode is very fine. 

There is no loftier moral height touched anywhere by the 
wing of the Horatian muse, than that of the opening of the 
third ode of the third book. Justum et tenacem propositi vi- 
rum, is the lordly first line. How it fills the mouth that 
utters it ! The sound is almost enough to convey the sense, 
even to English ears unskilled of Latin. Here is Mr. Mar- 
tin's resonant rendering of the first two stanzas : 

He that is just, and firm of will 

Doth not before the fury quake 
Of mobs that instigate to ill, 
Nor hath the tyrant's menace skill 

His fixed resolve to shake : 

Nor Auster, at whose wild command 

The Adriatic billows dash, 
Nor Jove's dread thunder-launching hand. 
Yea, if the globe should fall, he'll stand 

Serene amidst the crash. 

("Auster" is the name of a wind.) 

Professor Moses Stuart, in an eloquent pamphlet written 
to vindicate Daniel Webster against the obloquy that assailed 
him during the closing period of his patriotic career, finely 
quoted in its sonorous original Latin — to describe that great 
statesman's position and character — the magnificent first 
stanza of the foregoing ode. ... 



196 



College Latin Course in English. 



Like, in the lofty Roman spirit of it, is the fifth of book 
third, which sings Regulus. Livy, become lyrist, might 
have written such an ode. The story of Regulus will be re- 
called by our readers. Taken prisoner 
by the Carthaginians in the First Punic 
War, he was, after years of captivity, 
dispatched to Rome (under his promise 
to return, if unsuccessful in his embas- 
sy) charged from his captors to recom- 
mend peace on conditions humiliating 
to his country. He stoutly advised his 
countrymen to reject the terms pro- 
posed. Returning to Carthage, he was, 
with cruel torture, put to death. This 
latter part of the story of Regulus is 
now not generally credited. Horace regulus. 

makes fine use of the proud, if in part doubtful, tradition. 
We again let Mr. Martin translate for us. He certainly does 
upon occasion take fire from his original, and kindle into 
true poet's flame. Horace has just bemoaned the poltroon 
degeneracy of his countrymen : 




Ah, well he feared such shame for us, 
The brave, far-seeing Regulus, 
When he the vile conditions spurn'd, 
That might to precedent be turn'd, 
With ruin and disaster fraught 
To after times, should they be taught 
Another creed than this, — " They die 
Unwept, who brook captivity ! " 

"I've seen," he cried, " our standards hung 
In Punic fanes, our weapons wrung 
From Roman hands without a blow ; 
Our citizens, I've seen them go 
With arms behind their free backs tied, 
Gates I have seen flung open wide, 



Horace. 197 



Ay, Roman troops I've seen disgraced 
To till the plains they had laid waste ! 

" Will he return more brave and bold, 
The soldier you redeem with gold? 
You add but loss unto disgrace. 
Its native whiteness once efface 
With curious dyes ; you can no more 
That whiteness to the wool restore ; 
Nor is true valor, once debased, 
In souls corrupt to be replaced ! 

" If from the tangled meshes freed, 
The stag will battle, then indeed 
May he conspicuous valor show, 
Who trusted the perfidious foe, — 
He smite upon some future field 
The Carthaginian, who could yield 
In fear of death his arms to be 
Bound up with thongs submissively ! 
Content to draw his caitiff breath, 
Nor feel such life is worse than death! 
O shame ! O mighty Carthage, thou 
On Rome's fallen glories towerest now ! " 

From his chaste wife's embrace, they say, 
And babes, he tore himself away, 
As he had forfeited the right 
To clasp them as a freeman might ; 
Then sternly on the ground he bent 
His manly brow ; and so he lent 
Decision to the senate's voice, 
That paused and waver'd in its choice, 
And forth the noble exile strode, 
Whilst friends in anguish lined the road. 

Noble indeed ! for, though he knew 
What tortures that barbarian crew 
Had ripe for him, he waved aside 
The kin that did his purpose chide, 
The thronging crowds, that strove to stay 
His passage, with an air as gay, 



College Latin Course hi English. 



As though at close of some decree 

Upon a client's lawsuit he 

Its dreary coil were leaving there, 

To green Venafrum to repair 

Or to Tarentum s breezy shore 

Where Spartans built their town of yore. 

We shall supply a lively contrast to the tense high strain 
of the preceding odes, by introducing here the ninth of the 
third book. This is an Am-ce-be'an ode, so-called — one, that 
is, composed of alternately responsive stanzas. It is a very 
famous little piece. It will indicate the variety of genius 
and character that Horace has, in every age, attracted to 
illustrate his verse — at the same time exhibiting our ode in a 
really fine version of it — if we take Bishop Atterbury's ren- 
dering, not obsolete, though executed so long ago as 1700: 

Horace. While I was fond, and you were kind, 
Nor any dearer youth, reclined 
On your soft bosom, sought to rest, 
Phraates was not half so bless'd. 

Lydia. While you ador'd no other face, 

.Nor loved me in the second place, 
My happy celebrated fame 
Outshone e'en Ilia's envied flame. 

H. Me Chloe now possesses whole, 

Her voice and lyre command my soul ; 
Nor would I death itself decline, 
Could her life ransom' d be with mine. 

L. For me young lovely Calais bums, 

And warmth for warmth my heart returns, 
Twice would I life with ease resign, 
Could his be ransom'd once with mine. 

H. What if sweet love, whose bands we broke, 
Again should tame us to the yoke ; 
Should banished Chloe cease to reign, 
And Lydia her lost power regain? 



Horace. 199 

L. Though Hesperus be less fair than he, 
Thou wilder than the raging sea, 
Lighter than down ; yet gladly I 
With thee would live, with thee would die. 

With the foregoing may appropriately be associated, to 
complete our exhibition of Horace in the amatory vein, his 
hymn to Venus, the first of the fourth book of odes. This 
ode, Ben Jonson has rendered. We go back just a century 
from Bishop Atterbury to reach his date. Readers now will 
have to allow for some archaism, and some manneristic 
quaintness of expression. Mr. Martin adopts Ben Jonson's 
version, modifying and modernizing it to make it more harmo- 
nious with his own individual manner in translating and vers- 
ifying. Our readers, we judge, will like better to see "rare 
Ben Jonson " as he actually was, than as Mr. Martin im- 
proves him : 

Venus, againe thou mov'st a warre 
Long intermitted ; pray thee, pray thee spare: 
I am not such as in the reigne 
Of the good Cynara I was ; refraine, 
Sower mother of sweet loves, forbeare 
To bend a man, now at his fiftieth yeare 
Too stubborne for commands so slack : 
Goe where youth's soft entreaties call thee back. 
More timely hie thee to the house, 
• With thy bright swans, of Paulus Maximus: 
There jest and feast, make him thine host, 
If a fit liver thou dost seeke to toast ; 
For he's both noble, lovely, young, 
And for the troubled clyent fyls his tongue, 
Child of a'hundred arts, and farre 
Will he display the ensines of thy warre, 
And when he smiling finds his grace 
With thee 'bove all his rivals' gifts take place, 
He will thee a marble statue make. 
Beneath a sweet-wood roofe neere Alba lake: 
There shall thy dainty nostrill take 
In many a gumme, and for thy soft eare's sake 



College Latin Course i?i English. 



Shall verse be set to harpe and lute, 

And Phrygian hau'boy, not without the flute. 

There twice a day in sacred laies, 

The youths and tender maids shall sing thy praise, 

And in the Salian manner meet 

Thrice 'bout thy altar with their ivory feet. 

Me now, nor wench, nor wanton toy, 

Delights, nor credulous hope of mutuall joy, 

Nor care I now healths to propound, 

Or with fresh flowers to girt my temples round. 

But why, oh, why, my Ligurine, 

Flow my thin teares downe these pale cheeks of mine? 

Or why, my well-graced words among, 

With an uncomely silence failes my tongue ? 

Hard-hearted, I dreame every night 

I hold thee fast ! but fled hence, with the light, 

Whether in Mars his field thou be, 

Or Tyber's winding streams, I follow thee. 

Horace's ode to Venus suffers, we think, in comparison 
with Sappho's Hymn to Aphrodite. This, Horace himself 
perhaps would freely admit ; for he admired Greek genius ar„d 
Greek art in lyric song, as our next citation will show. 

The second ode of the fourth book contains a fine and a 
famous characterization of Pindar. Mr. Martin shall make 
it English verse for us. Horace glorifies Pindar, and then, 
in a demure fit of modesty, contrasts himself. He duly 
modulates his strain into eulogy of Cassar Augustus: 

lulus, he who'd rival Pindar's fame 

On waxen wings doth sweep 

The Empyrean steep, 
To fall like Icarus, and with his name 

Endue the glassy deep. 

Like to a mountain stream, that roars 

From bank to bank along, 

When autumn rains are strong, 
So deep-mouth'd Pindar lifts his voice, and pours 

His fierce tumultuous soncr. 



Horace. 



Worthy Apollo's laurel wreath, 

Whether he strike the lyre 

To love and young desire, 
While bold and lawless numbers grow beneath 

His mastering touch of fire ; 

Or sings of gods, and monarchs sprung 

Of gods, that overthrew 

The Centaurs, hideous crew, 
And, fearless of the monster's fiery tongue, 

The dread Chimaera slew. 

Or mourns the youth snatch'd from his bride, 

Extols his manhood clear, 

And to the starry sphere 
Exalts his golden virtues, scattering wide 

The gloom of Orcus drear. 

When the Dircean Swan doth climb 

Into the azure sky, 

There poised in ether high, 
He courts each gale, and floats on wing sublime, 

Soaring with steadfast eye. 

I, like the tiny bee, that sips 

The fragrant thyme, and strays 

Humming through leafy ways, 
By Tibur's sedgy banks, with trembling lips 

Fashion my toilsome lays. 

But thou, when up the sacred steep 

Csesar, with garlands crown 'd, 

Leads the Sicambrians bound, 
With bolder hand the echoing strings shalt sweep, 

And bolder measures sound. 

The fifth of book fifth is all tribute to Augustus. One 
naturally compares it with Tennyson's noble dedication to 
his queen, of his own collected poems — " this poor book of 
song," as he himself, with modest disparagement, styles the 
volume. 

The epodes are younger and inferior works of the poet. 
9* 



202 



College Latin Course in English. 



The second of the first book may be read with interest in 

collation with the " Cotter's Saturday Night " of Burns. 

Mr. Martin has given it the same 

metrical form with that of Gray's 

" Elegy Written in a Country 

Church-Yard." 

As now — with first scarcely 
more than a ceremonious salute 
to his satires — we pass from the 
odes to the Epistles of Horace, 
we keep ourselves in countenance 
with our readers, by quoting, 
from the preface to his English 
Horace, an expression of Mr. Con- 
ington's, to confirm our own at 
once disparaging and admiring ap- 
preciation of these celebrated Lat- 
in lyrics : 

" It is only the attractiveness of 
the Latin, half real, half perhaps 
arising from association and the 
romance of a language not one's 
own, that makes us feel this * lyr- 
ical commonplace' more support- 
able than commonplace is usually 
found to be." 

The satires proper of Horace — his satires, we mean, ex- 
pressly so named — we shall need to detain but very briefly 
under notice. The Horatian satiric vein runs also through 
the poetical epistles of this author; and one of these, in fairly 
adequate specimen of their kind, it will be desirable to dis~ 
play somewhat fully to our readers. We simply now, for in- 
sertion here, detach from the sixth satire, second book, of 
Horace, the fable of The Town and Country Mouse. This 




Horace. 



is well rendered in rattling octosyllabics by Mr. Martin ; but 
we present instead a version which, besides being more ex- 
actly literal than that, is conformed in metre to the hex- 
ameter Latin original. (The present writer may be permitted 
to testify, that with every added degree of approach achieved 
by him to absolute verbal fidelity in translation, he has 
seemed to himself to be adding something of picturesque- 
ness and of spirit to his work. To his own mind, this con- 
stitutes a lively evidence of the inseparable merit of Horace's 
lines. We ought to explain that, at one point in the story, 
Horace humorously incorporates, for mock-heroic effect, a 
Virgilian assemblage of words to mark the hour of midnight. 
By way of exception to our own literal exactness in render- 
ing, we have ventured to reproduce this stroke of Horatian 
humor in English, by making conscript a slow-moving spon- 
daic line of Milton's " Paradise Lost," to serve the same 
purpose.) 

The fable translated is playfully introduced by Horace, 
as a threadbare story told by a guest, at a banquet imagined 
to take place in the country, where high themes are dis- 
cussed. Cervus, a neighbor of Horace's, is one of those 
men whose idea of helping on conversation is to contribute a 
story. Some one has remarked on the anxious wealth of 
Arellius, when Cervus snuffs his chance and begins : 

Once, runs the story, a mouse of the country within his poor cavern 
Welcomed a mouse of the city — old cronies they each of the other — 
Manners uncouth, sharp eye to his hoard, yet disposed notwithstanding, 
Acting the host, Ins close heart to unbind. Why multiply words? He 
Neither the stored-away chick-pea grudged, nor Ids longest oat-kernel. 
Forth in his mouth he, bringing the dry plum, also his nibbled 
Bacon-bits, gave them, eager with various banquet to vanquish 
Niceness of guest scarce touching with tooth of disdain any viand : 
While, stretched on fresh litter of straw, he, lord of the household, 
Ate him a spelt-grain or darnel, the choicer provisions refraining. 

Finally, city-bred says to the other : " What is it, companion, 
Tempts you, enduring, to live on the ridge abrupt of the forest ? 



2c»4 College Latin Course in English, 

You, too — will you prefer men and town to the fierce savage wildwood? 
Up and away — trust, comrade, to me ; since creatures terrestrial 
Live allotted a mortal portion of breath, nor is any 
Refuge from death to great or to small : so, my excellent fellow, 
While it is granted you, live in agreeable wise, well-conditioned; 
Live recollecting of span how brief you are ! " 

Soon as these speeches 
Wrought on the swain, he out of his dwelling lightly leaps forth : thence 
Press they, the pair, on the journey proposed, being keenly desirous 
Under the walls of the city to creep as night-farers. And night now 
4 Half-way up hill this vast sublunar vault ' clomb, when 
Each of the mice set foot in a palace resplendent, where drapings 
Tinctured crimson in grain were glowing on ivory couches. 
Numberless dishes remaining from yesterday's sumptuous supper 
There at remove stood in panniers loftily built like a turret. 

So when now he has placed at his ease on a couch-spread of purple 
Countryman mouse, obsequious host he runs hither and thither, 
Course after course the supper prolongs, and, with flourish of service, 
Does all the honors in form, whatever he offers foretasting. 
He, reclining, rejoices in altered estate, and in plenty 
Plays you the part of jolly good fellow — when, sudden, a mighty 
Rumble of doors rolling open both of them shook from their couches : 
Helter-skelter scampering went they, stricken with terror — 
Growingly breathless with panic they quake, while rings the great mansion 
Loud to the baying of mastiffs Molossian. 

Then countryman mouse said : 
" Life such as this I've no use for ; good-bye to you : me, with the lowly 
Vetch, shall the woods, and a cave secm-e from surprises, make happy." 

It is the contrast of the leisurely and remote convei sation 
conceived thus as passing at the supposed banquet i'i the 
country — the contrast of tin's with the hurried and exciting 
scenes and occasions of life in the city, that affords the 
mild flavor of satire discoverable in this composition of 
Horace's. 

Of the Epistles of Horace, there are two decidedly more 
interesting and more valuable for modern readers than any 
of the others. These are the Epistle to Augustus and that 
to the Pisos. The latter is generally called " The Art of 



Horace. 205 

Poetry," such being in fact the didactic subject of the epis- 
tle. Horace's u Ars Poetica " enjoys a high repute for the 
soundness of its inculcation on the subject which it tieats. 
It suffers so in any English translation that we are much dis- 
posed to pass it, asking our readers to study Pope's " Essay 
on Criticism," as a lively and agreeable way of getting at the 
spirit, and at no small part also of the wisdom, of the ancient 
production. Pope, in his various versified essays, makes a 
very good English Horace, such as Horace appears in his 
epistles and in his satires. The Art of Poetry is a piece in 
hexameters, making about six hundred and fifty heroics in 
Dr. Francis's translation. Critics have shrewdly suspected 
that some part of Horace's purpose, in this epistle to the 
Pisos, was, under the guise of general suggestion, to insinuate 
dissuasion from the project, entertained by those distin- 
guished men, of going into the business of poetry-writing. 
There were now in Rome, what Pope called in England a 
"mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease," and true literature 
was like to perish there under too much crowding of the market 
with amateur literary wares from the hands of " the great." 

The Epistle to Augustus also discusses the subject of 
poetical production. Pope, under the title of an Imitation, 
has translated, with " modern touches here and there," this 
epistle, in one of his wittiest satires. The dulcet praises 
chanted by Horace to Augustus, in the first part of the epis- 
tle, were, by the English wit, turned ironically into bitter dis- 
praises of his own royal liege, King George II. Pope : 

While you, great patron of mankind ! sustain 
The balanced world, and open all the Main ; 
Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend, 
At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend ; 
How shall the muse, from such a monarch, steal 
An hour, and not defraud the public weal? 

So Pope begins. Take the reverse direction, converting 
back this irony on George II. of England into good earnest 



206 College Latin Course in English. 

of adulation to Augustus of Rome, and you have authentic 
Horace in place of imitative Pope. Let the following, from 
Smart's literal translation of Horace's opening lines, illustrate 
this : 

Since you alone support so many and such weighty concerns, defend 
Italy with your arms, adorn it by your virtue, reform it by your laws I 
should offend, O Coesar, against the public interests, if I were to trespass 
upon your time with a long discourse. 

When Pope wrote his satire, the Spaniards were invading, 
with what Britons felt to be insolent bravado, Great Britain's 
private preserve of the ocean. This gives its point to Pope's 
irony about George's " opening all the main " — that is, lay- 
ing open the sea to the hostile and menacing visits of the 
Spaniard. 

Horace goes on with allusion to Romulus, and Father 
Bacchus, and Castor and Pollux. These names are changed 
by Pope into English parallels, but the sentiment is kept 
— always, however, with the satirical irony understood. 
We hardly need to quote literal Smart, so consummately 
and ingeniously Horatian has Pope here contrived to be. 
Pope : 

Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame, 

And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name, 

After a life of gen'rous toils endured, 

The Gaul subdued, or property secured, 

Ambition humbled, mighty cities stormed, 

Or laws established, and the world reformed ; 

Closed their long glories with a sigh to find 

Th' unwilling gratitude of base mankind ! 

All human virtue, to its latest breath, 

Finds Envy never conquered but by death. 

The great Alcides, ev'ry labor past, 

Had still this monster to subdue at last. 

Sure fate of all, beneath whose rising ray 

Each star of meaner merit fades away ! 

Oppressed we feel the beam directly beat, 

Those suns of glory please not till they set. 



Horace. 207 



Horace complaisantly contrasts the popular justice of appre- 
ciation shown toward Augustus, in that prince's lifetime, with 
the popular injustice generally shown toward men by their own 
contemporaries, through injurious comparison with the an- 
cients. Pope very closely imitates, almost translates, satirically 

— thus : 

To thee, the world its present homage pays, 
The harvest early, but mature the praise : 
Great friend of liberty ! in kings a name 
Above all Greek, above all Roman fame : 
Whose word is truth, as sacred, as revered, 
As heav'n's own oracles from altars heard. 
Wonder of kings ! like whom, to mortal eyes 
None e'er has risen, and none e'er shall rise. 

Just in one instance, be it yet confest 
Your people, sir, are partial in the rest : 
Foes to all living worth except your own, 
And advocates for folly dead and gone. 
Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old, 
It is the rust we value, not the gold. 

Pope is like Horace in being surpassingly quotable. 
" Above all Greek, above all Roman fame," will be recognized 
for a familiar acquaintance. (" Heard " was formerly pro- 
nounced so as to be a true rhyme with " revered.") 

Horace is a little querulous in the topic he now touches. 
"Just what age," he asks, "must a poem have attained, 
before it can safely be pronounced good?" Pope still is 
close enough to Horace. Let us go on with Pope : 

If time improve our wit as well as wine, 
Say at what age a poet grows divine ? 
Shall we, or shall we not, account him so, 
Who died, perhaps, a hundred years ago ? 
End all dispute ; and fix the year precise 
When British bards begin t' immortalize? 

' Who lasts a century can have no flaw ; 
I hold that wit a classic, good in law.' 

Suppose he wants a year, will you compound? 
And shall we deem him ancient, right and sound, 



208 College Latin Course in English. 

Or damn to all eternity at once, 

At ninety-nine, a modern and a dunce? 

' We shall not quarrel for a year or two ; 
By courtesy of England, he may do.' 

Then by the rule that made the horse-tail bare, 
I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair, 
And melt down ancients like a heap of snow ; 
While you to measure merits, look in Stowe, 
And estimating authors by the year, 
Bestow a garland only on a bier. 

Gossip Plutarch is authority for the anecdote about the 
horse's tail, to which, in his illustration reproduced above 
by Pope, Horace alludes. In his life of Sertorius, Plu- 
tarch says that that general, to impress on the men of his 
army the value of wisdom and contrivance, in contrast with 
mere inconsiderate brute strength, adopted the expedient of 
an object-lesson displayed before them. He had two horses 
brought out, one old and feeble, the other full of youth and 
vigor. He then set at work a strapping fellow on the feeble 
horse's tail, to pull the hairs out, if he could. At the same 
moment, a weakly man was put at the same job with the tail 
of the strong young horse. The able-bodied man made 
a victim of his animal, dragging the poor beast about, this 
way and that — to the infinite diversion of the spectators, 
but making meantime no headway with his task. The 
weaker man patiently took the hairs of his horse's tail 
one by one, and soon had the stump plucked completely 
bare. 

Horace now runs over a list of Roman names in literature, 
famous, merely or mainly, because they were old. Pope 
matches these with an English list. Horace then agrees 
that the conventional verdict on authors is sometimes right, 
but he insists that also it is sometimes wrong. He is vexed 
that poems should be condemned, not because they are 
poor, but because they are new, and that poems should 
be praised, not because they are good, but because they 



Horace. 209 



are old. He asks pertinently — we give the quotation as 
Pope puts it — : 

" Had ancient times conspired to disallow 

What then was new, what had been ancient now?" 

It is by a very slight association — but the association 
is perhaps sufficient for an epistle — that Horace pro- 
ceeds now to satirize the epidemic itch for writing poetry, 
that, he says, prevailed among Romans. Pope translates and 
parodies, as follows : 

Time was, a sober Englishman would knock 

His servants up, and rise by five o'clock, 

Instruct his family in ev'ry rule, 

And send his wife to church, his son to school. 

To worship like his fathers, was his care ; 

To teach their frugal virtues to his heir ; 

To prove that luxury could never hold ; 

And place, on good security, his gold. 

Now times are changed, and one poetic itch 

Has seized the court and city, poor and rich : 

Sons, sires, and grandsires, all will wear the bays, 

Our wives read Milton, and our daughters plays, 

To theatres, and to rehearsals throng, 

And all our grace at table is a song. 

I, who so oft renounce the Muses, lie, 

Not 's self e'er tells more fibs than I ; 

When sick of Muse, our follies we deplore, 
And promise our best friends to rhyme no more ; 
We wake next morning in a raging fit, 
And call for pen and ink to show our wit. 

But those who cannot write, and those who can, 
All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man. 

Horace now, half humorously, half seriously, computes the 
negative and the positive benefits conferred upon society by 
the poetical tribe. Pope thus renders him : 

Yet, sir, reflect, the mischief is not great ; 
These madmen never hurt the church or state. 



College Lati?i Course in English. 



Sometimes the folly benefits mankind ; 
And rarely av'rice taints the tuneful mind. 
Allow him but his plaything of a pen, 
He ne'er rebels, or plots, like other men : 

Of little use the man, you may suppose, 
Who says in verse what others say in prose ; 
Yet let me show, a poet's of some weight, 
And (though no soldier) useful to the state. 
... . What will a child learn sooner than a song? 

What better teach a foreigner the tongue? 
What's long or short, each accent where to place, 
And speak in public with some sort of grace ? 

He, from the taste obscene reclaims our youth, 
And sets the passions on the side of truth, 
Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art, 
And pours each human virtue in the heart. 

The foregoing, be it noted, is, like all the rest of Pope's 
satire, authentically Horatian. The form even is Pope's form 
only as it is English and not Latin ; the meaning is wholly the 
meaning of Horace. 

Horace next summarizes the history of that development 
in culture, by which at Rome the rudeness of rustic song be- 
came polite and elegant poetry. Follows the celebrated 
saying, " Captive Greece took captive her fierce conqueror," 
which, with its sequel, Pope translates and accommodates 

thus : 

We conquered France, but felt our captive's charms ; 
Her arts victorious triumphed o'er our arms: 
Britain to soft refinements less a foe, 
Wit grew polite, and numbers learned to flow. 
Waller was smooth ; but Dryden taught to join 
The varying verse, the full-resounding line, 
The long majestic march, and energy divine. 
Though stili some traces of our rustic vein 
And splay-foot verse, remained, and will remain. 
Late, very late, coiTectness grew our care, 
When the tired nation.breathed from civil war. 



Horace. 211 



Exact Racine, and Corneille's noble fire, 

Showed us that France had something to admire. 

Not but the tragic spirit was our own, 

And full in Shakespeare, fair in Otway shone : 

But Otway failed to polish or refine, 

And fluent Shakespeare scarce effaced a line. 

Even copious Dry den wanted, or forgot, 

The last and greatest art, — the art to blot. 

It is really remarkable how exactly, mutatis muta?idis, Pope 
here reproduces Horace. Hardly any thing but the proper 
names, is different: 

After a passage about comedy, in which he points out how 
nice the task is to be just exquisitely right, in such produc- 
tion, Horace proceeds to belabor " the many-headed monster 
of the pit " — as Pope, with that felicity of epigrammatic phrase 
which is his, calls the vulgar mass of spectators in the the- 
atre. He then indicates the difficulty of the task which is 
set the comic dramatist to perform. It is nearly exact trans- 
lation, in spirit, if not in letter, when Pope says : 

Booth enters — hark ! the universal peal ! 

" But has he spoken ? " Not a syllable. 

What shook the stage, and made the people stare? 

Cato's long wig, flow'red gown, and lacquered chair. 

With admirable spirit, as with admirable sense, Horace 
sings, and Pope echoes : 

Yet lest you think I rally more than teach, 

Or praise malignly arts I cannot reach, 

Let me for once presume t' instruct the times, 

To know the poet from the man of rhymes : 

'Tis he, who gives my breast a thousand pains, 

Can make me feel each passion that he feigns ; 

Enrage, compose, with more than magic art, 

With pity, and with terror, tear my heart ; 

And snatch me, o'er the earth, or through the air, 

To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where. 



212 College Latin Course in English. 

The magic of the dramatist here spoken of, to effect change 
of scene, must not be taken to imply that, within one and the 
same play, the spectator was anciently thus whisked about 
from place to place. One of the dramatic unities, required 
by ancient canons of literary art, was unity of place. It was 
in passing from one play to another, Horace means to say, 
that the spectator was now in Thebes, now in Athens. 

Only by actual comparison of the one with the other, could 
any man be brought to appreciate the exquisite wit and art 
with which the conclusion of Horace's epistle is turned by 
Pope from Latin and Augustan into English and Georgian. 
We do, we think, our readers a real service by giving them, 
for this conclusion, Pope's brilliant paraphrase and parody 
side by side with the original Horace in Smart's literal trans- 
lation. Horace, after a sort, excuses himself for not under- 
taking to celebrate in epic the glories of Augustus. He does 
this with appropriate allusion to historic instance. Horace 
(Smart) : 

A favorite of King Alexander the Great was that Chcer'i-lus, who to 
his uncouth and ill-formed verses owed the many pieces he received of 
Philip's royal coin. But, as ink when touched leaves behind it a mark 
and a blot, so writers as it were stain shining actions with foul poetry. 
That same king, who prodigally bought so dear so ridiculous a poem, 
by an edict forbade that any one beside A-pel'les should paint him, 
or that any other than Ly-sip'pus should mold brass for the likeness of 
the valiant Alexander. But should you call that faculty of his, so delicate 
in discerning other arts, to judge of books and of these gifts of the muses, 
you would swear he had been born in the gross air of the Bce-o'tians. 
Yet neither do Virgil and Varius, your beloved poets, disgrace your judg- 
ment of them, and the presents which they have received with great 
honor to the donor ; nor do the features of illustrious men appear more 
lively when expressed by statues of brass, than their manners and minds 
expressed by the works of a poet. Nor would I rather compose such 
tracts as the^e creeping on the ground, than record deeds of arms, and 
the situations of countries, and rivers, and forts reared upon mountains, 
and barbarous kingdoms, and wars brought to a conclusion through the 
whole world under your auspices, and the barriers that confine Janus 



Horace. 213 



the guardian of peace, and Rome dreaded by the Parthians under your 
government, if I were but able to do as much as I could wish. But 
neither does your majesty admit of humble poetry, nor dares my modesty 
attempt a subject which my strength is unable to support. Yet ofncious- 
ness foolishly disgusts the person whom it loves ; especially when it rec- 
ommends itself by numbers and the art of writing. For one learns 
sooner, and more willingly remembers, that which a man derides, than 
that which he approves and venerates. I value not the zeal that gives 
me uneasiness ; nor do I wish to be set out anywhere in wax with a face 
formed for the worse, nor to be celebrated in ill-composed verses , lest I 
blush, when presented with the gross gift ; and, exposed in an open box 
along with my author, be conveyed into the street that sells frankincense, 
and spices, and pepper,and whatever is wrapped up in impertinent writings. 

Now Pope : 

Charles, to late times to be transmitted fair, 
Assigned his figure to Bernini's care, 
And great Nassau to Kneller's hand decreed 
To fix him graceful on the bounding steed ; 
So well in paint and stone they judged of merit : 
But kings in wit may want discerning spirit. 
The hero William, and the martyr Charles, 
One knighted Blackmore, and one pensioned Quarles ; 
Which made old Ben, and surly Dennis swear, 
" No lord's anointed, but a Russian bear." 

Not with such majesty, such bold relief, 
The forms august, of king, or conquering chief, 
E'er swelled on marble; as in verse have shined 
(In polished verse) the manners and the mind. 
Oh ! could I mount on the Maeonian wing, 
Your anus, your actions, your repose to sing ! 
"What seas you traversed, and what fields you fought ! 
Your country's peace, how oft, how dearly bought ! 
How barb'rous rage subsided at your word, 
And nations wondered while they dropped the sword 1 
How, when you nodded, o'er the land and deep, 
Peace stole her wing, and wrapt the world in sleep ; 
'Till earth's extremes your mediation own, 
And Asia's tyrants tremble at your throne- 
But verse, alas ! your majesty disdains ; 
And I'm not used to panegyric strains; 



214 College Latin Course in English. 

The zeal of fools offends at any time, 

But most of all, the zeal of fools in rhyme. 

Besides, a fate attends on all I write, 

That when I aim at praise, they say I bite. 

A vile encomium doubly ridicules : 

There's nothing blackens like the ink of fools. 

If true, a woeful likeness ; and if lies, 

" Praise undeserved is scandal in disguise: " 

Well may he blush, who gives it, or receives ; 

And when I flatter, let my dirty leaves 

(Like journals, odes, and such forgotten things 

As Eusden, Philips, Settle, writ of kings) 

Clothe spice, line trunks, or, fluttering in a row, 

Befringe the rails of Bedlam and Soho." 

The facility with which Horace lends himself to such 
adaptations as the foregoing, may serve to remind one how 
fundamentally the same from age to age, and from race to 
race, our common human nature remains. It may serve 
also to show that Horace was in this at least a poet for all 
time. He took hold of what is permanent in the constitution 
of our human frame. 

Poet the world will always call Horace, and poet indeed 
"he was. But, as in his odes he was still more an artist than 

a poet, so in his satires and epistles he was far less a poet than a 
wit. He herein resembles Pope — on the sa- 
tiric and epistolary side of his genius, Horace's 
best English analogue. Both as man, and as 
man of letters, Horace was of the world, emi- 
nently so, and the world will always love its 
own. His fame will easily last as long as the 
world lasts — or as the fashion of the world 

lasts. And no one will grudge so accomplished and so 

agreeable a man his merited reward. 




Juvenal. 215 



VI. 

JUVENAL. 

If Tacitus had been a poet, he would have been a poet 
like Ju've-nal. If Juvenal had been an historian, he would 
have been an historian like Tacitus. Both alike were 
satirists. The difference is that Tacitus satirized incident- 
ally, and in prose, while Juvenal satirized expressly, and in 
verse. 

It was noted by the Romans themselves that satire was a 
literary form — the only one — of their own origination. Juve- 
nal was by no means the first in time, though he is so far the 
first in power, among Roman satirists. Horace was a satirist 
before Juvenal, as Lucilius was a satirist before Horace. Of 
Lucilius, true founder of Roman satire, only fragments re- 
main. Between Horace and Juvenal came Persius, but those 
two are for us the representative satirists of Rome. 

Horace's satires have the character of amateur perform- 
ances, in comparison with the satires of Juvenal. Horace 
had not depth enough of nature, had not strength enough of 
conviction, to make him a really powerful satirist. He ex- 
perimented, he toyed, with the satiric vein. Juvenal satirized 
in dead earnest. He did not play at his task. He wrought 
at it with might and main. His whole soul was in it, and 
his soul was large and strong. Satire, in his hands, was less 
a lash, even a Roman lash, than a sword. It did not sting. 
It cut. It did not cut simply the skin. It cut the flesh. It 
cut the flesh to the bone. It clove the bone to the marrow. 
Hardly ever, in the history of literature, has such a weapon 
been wielded by any writer. 

Who was Juvenal? No one knows. He was this satirist. 
That is all we know of him. As a man, he is nothing but a 
name. Not that there are not traditions about Juvenal. But 



216 College Latin Course in English. 



there are no traditions that we can trust. When he lived, is 
uncertain. We know only that it was about the close of the 
first century after Christ. He had seen the empire under 
several emperors. Some think that, having written earlier, 
he finally published under Trajan — a ruler great enough, and 
strong enough, and wise, as well as generous, enough, to let 
the satirist say his say, unhindered and unharmed. Not 
quite to the end, however, unharmed — if we are to trust the 
legend which relates that Juvenal was honorably, and as it 
were satirically, punished for the freedom of his pen, by being 
sent to Egypt at eighty years of age to command a cohort 
stationed in that province. He there soon died of his vexa- 
tion and chagrin. Such is the story; but the story has no 
voucher. Juvenal is personally a great unknown. But can 
the man justly be called unknown who has written what 
Juvenal has written? The incidents of his life, the traits of 
his personal appearance, we are ignorant of — but do we not 
know Juvenal by what is far more central and essential in 
his character ? 

The answer to that question depends upon whether we 
take Juvenal's satires to shadow forth the real sentiments of 
the satirist, or to have been written by him in mere wanton 
play of wit, "without a conscience or an aim." Opposite 
views have been contended for on this point, but the present 
writer is sure he feels the pulse of personal sincerity beat- 
ing strong in Juvenal's satires. It was the morals, much 
more than it was the manners, of the Roman empire, that 
engaged the genius of Juvenal. That the satirist himself re- 
mained a model of virtue, amid the general corruption that 
rotted around him, we should be far from maintaining. But 
Juvenal's conscience was on the side of virtue — his conscience, 
or at least his Roman pride and scorn. He truly despised 
vice, if he did not truly reprobate vice. Scorn edged the 
blade, and scorn urged the blow. 

It is a pity, but for reasons of propriety, we cannot show our 



Juvenal. 217 



readers the one satire in particular which staggers, for many, 
their faith in Juvenal, but by which, we confess, our own 
faith in Juvenal is confirmed. Vice was so flagrant in impe- 
rial Rome, that only to name what was done there would 
now be an intolerable offense. But Juvenal named it, 
and never flinched. He painted it with colors dipped in 
hell. You look at the picture aghast. No wonder if for a 
moment you feel such a picture to be as wicked as that itself 
was, of which this is a picture. The picture breathes and 
burns. It is not like life — it is life. The artist has not de- 
picted sin — he has committed sin. 

But look again. There is no enticement here. You are 
not allured. You are revolted. It was not because he 
secretly loved them, that this man dwelt on images of evil. He 
dwelt on them because he hated, or at least despised, them, 
and would do his utmost to make them everywhere hateful 
or despicable. So at least we read Juvenal. But we will 
speak no more of what we must not show. 

Happily what we can show of Juvenal is one of the best 
of his satires — one of the best, and, on the whole, perhaps 
quite the most celebrated. There are sixteen satires in all, 
and this is the tenth of the series. Dr. Samuel Johnson has 
given it added fame for English readers by his powerful im- 
itative poem, " The Vanity of Human Wishes." It will be 
interesting to study the original and the imitation together. 

It is wise always in the reader to expect that satires, like 
comedies, will be found to depend for their interest so much 
on that atmosphere of incident and event in which they were 
produced, as to be sadly deprived of color and tone through 
lapse of time and change of place. The full text of Juvenal's 
Tenth Satire would thus, we fear, notwithstanding the ex- 
traordinary merit of the poem, prove but dull reading to 
many. We shall need to be select and to be short. 

The motive of the piece is tolerably well expressed in 
Johnson's title, "The Vanity of Human Wishes." That 
10 



218 College Latin Course in English. 

expression, however, is ambiguous. It might be understood 
to convey the idea that human wishes are vain, as impotent to 
bring about their own fulfillment. The satirist's true thought 
is rather, not that human wishes are weak, but that human 
wishes are blind and unwise. We wish at foolish cross-pur- 
poses. We desire our own bane, we dread our own 
blessing. 

There is a recent prose translation, published by Mac- 
millan & Co., very good, and interesting the more because 
coming to us from our antipodes. The translators are En- 
glish scholars who date their work from the University of 
Melbourne, in Australia. We resist the temptation to seem 
fresh by using this version, and go back to the pentameter 
couplets of Gifford. The relief of verse and of rhyme will 
be found grateful. Juvenal's point will seem sharper, than 
it would do sheathed in scholarlike, but not literary, prose. 

Let Observation, with extensive view, 
Survey mankind from China to Peru, 

is Johnson's familiar beginning. The tautologous verbosity 
of this has often been pointed out. It is an extreme speci- 
men of Johnson at his worst. Juvenal gave Johnson the 
hint, but Johnson is himself responsible for suffering the 
hint to carry him so far. What Juvenal says is (as our 
Australian translators give it), " In all the world — from 
Gades [Cadiz] to the land of the Morning and its Ganges." 
Gifford rhymes it : 

In every clime, from Ganges' distant stream 
To Gades, gilded by the western beam. 

It will be noted that Gifford, for the sake of his versification, 
takes the liberty, first, to transpose the points of the compass ; 
and, second, to transfer the poetical amplification, from the 
East, where Juvenal used it, to the West. The total effect 
is not thus much modified. At any rate, this freedom on 
Gifford's part may be taken to exemplify his general habit in 



Juvenal. 2 1 9 



doing his work of translating, with Juvenal. Juvenal says 
that "in every clime " from West to East, the rule is for men 
to wish what, if granted, will probably injure them. For ex- 
ample, the universal craving is for wealth, but how often has 
wealth been the ruin of its possessor. The rich, under bad 
emperors, became the prey of those emperors, while the poor 
escaped by their own obscurity. The satirist recalls historic 
instances (GirTord's translation ) : 

For this, in other times, at Nero's word, 
The ruffian bands unsheathed the murderous sword, 
Rushed to the swelling coffers of the great, 
Chased Lat-e-ra'nus from his lordly seat, 
Besieged too-wealthy Seneca's wide walls, 
And closed, terrific, round Lon-gi'nus' halls : 
While sweetly in their cocklofts slept the poor, 
And heard no soldier thundering at their door. 
The traveller, freighted with a little wealth, 
Sets forth at night, and wins his way by stealth : 
Even then, he fears the bludgeon and the blade, 
And starts and trembles at a rush's shade ; 
"While, void of care, the beggar trips along, 
And, in the spoiler's presence, trolls his song. 

Juvenal thinks that if, in their own times, De-moc'ri-tus 
could laugh incessantly, and Her-a-cli'tus could incessantly 
weep, over the follies of their fellow-creatures, those philoso- 
phers would find much more food for laughter and for 
tears, were they to enjoy a resurrection under the Roman 
empire as he himself saw the Roman empire. The laughter 
of Democritus, by the way, Juvenal says, was intelligible — 
anybody could laugh ; but where could anybody get brine 
enough to keep him going in tears? This is the fashion in 
which Juvenal derided the pomp of civic processions and 
military triumphs in Rome : 

Democritus, at every step he took, 
His sides with unextinguished laughter shook, 
Though, in his days, Abdera's simple towns 
No fasces knew, chairs, litters, purple gowns. 



220 College Latin Course in English. 

What ! had he seen, in his triumphal car, 

Amid the dusty Cirque, conspicuous far, 

The Preetor perched aloft, superbly dress'd 

In Jove's proud tunic, with a trailing vest 

Of Tynan tapestry, and o'er him spread 

A crown, too bulky for a mortal head, 

Borne by a sweating slave, maintained to ride 

In the same car, and mortify his pride! 

Add now the bird, that, with expanded wing, 

From the raised sceptre seems prepared to spring ; 

And trumpets here ; and there the long parade 

Of duteous friends, who head the cavalcade ; 

Add, too, the zeal of clients robed in white, 

Who hang upon his reins, and grace the sight, 

Unbribed, unbought — save by the dole, at night ! 

Juvenal alludes at some length to the striking fate of 
Se-ja'nus. Sejanus, an imperial favorite under Tiberius, 
became a pretender to the throne, and so a conspirator 
against his sovereign. He was found out, was strangled, and 
the populace rent his dead body into fragments, which they 
flung into the Tiber. The statues of the fallen man were 
tumbled down and melted up in fierce fires, kindled on the 
street. The rabble meantime ignorantly exchanged gibes, in 
their street talk, at the very man whom, had he but suc- 
ceeded, they would have hailed emperor with uproarious 
cheers. Now Juvenal, from the point at which the fire is 
kindled for melting up the bronze Sejanus : 

Then roar the fires ! the sooty artist blows, 
And all Sejanus in the furnace glows ; 
Sejanus, once so honored, so adored, 
And only second to the world's great lord, 
Runs glittering from the mould, in cups and cans, 
Basins and ewers, plates, pitchers, pots, and pans. 

" Crown all your doors with bay, triumphant bay ! 
Sacred to Jove, the milk-white victim slay ; 
For lo ! where great Sejanus by the throng, 
A joyful spectacle ! is dragged along. 



Juvenal. 221 



What lips ! what cheeks ! ha, traitor ! — for my part, 

I never loved the fellow — in my heart." 

" But tell me ; Why was he adjudged to bleed? 

And who discovered ? and who proved the deed? " 

" Proved ! — a huge, wordy letter came to-day 

From Caprege." Good ! what think the people ? They ! 

They follow foi'tune, as of old, and hate, 

With their whole souls, the victim of the state. 

Yet would the herd, thus zealous, thus on fire, 

Had Nurscia met the Tuscan's fond desire, 

And ciushed the unwary prince, have all combined, 

And hailed Sejanus, Master of mankind ! 

Johnson's parallel to Sejanus is Cardinal Wolsey : 

In full-blown dignity, see Wolsey stand, 
Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand : 
To him the Church, the realm, their pow'rs consign, 
Thro' him the rays of regal bounty shine, 
Turn'd by his nod the stream of honor flows, 
His smile alone security bestows. 
Still to new heights his restless wishes tow'r, 
Claim leads to claim, and pow'r advances pow'r : 
Till conquest unresisted ceas'd to please, 
And rights submitted left him none to seize. 
At length his sov'reign frowns — the train of state 
Mark the keen glance, and watch the sign to hate. 
Where'er he turns, he meets a stranger's eye, 
His suppliants scorn him, and his followers fly. 

These balanced declamatory lines of Johnson suffer from 
the comparison which they naturally provoke, with Shakes- 
peare's treatment of the same topic, in his Henry the Eighth. 

At this point occurs one of the most memorable of all 
Juvenal's satirical strokes. The satirist contrasts former 
popular freedom with present popular servitude. The same 
Roman people, he says, that once proudly by its votes con- 
ferred every privilege and every distinction, now confines its 
aspiration to the one cry for bread to stop its mouth, and for 
the games of the circus to set its eyes agape. Panem et 



College Latin Course in English. 



circenses / Food and fun at the public expense, were, in 
Juvenal's time, sufficient to content the degenerate citizens 
of the empire. " Panem et circenses," is a famous phrase of 
quotation. 'Say,' exclaims Juvenal, suddenly — as would 
seem — bethinking himself that he had introduced Sejanus for 
a purpose, ' say, would you like Sejanus's power, bought at 
Sej anus's price ? ' 

From Sejanus, Juvenal goes back farther for historic in- 
stances, to Crassus, to Pompey, to Caesar: 

What wrought the Crassi, what the Pompeys' doom, 
And his, who bowed the stubborn neck of Rome? 
What but the wild, the unbounded wish to rise, 
Heard, in malignant kindness, by the skies. 
Few kings, few tyrants, find a bloodless end, 
Or to the grave, without a wound, descend. 

Wealth and power are not the only objects foolishly craved 
by men. The ambition and the prayer to be eloquent are 
also disguised and unconscious invocations of doom — witness 
the examples of Demosthenes and Cicero : 

The child, with whom a trusty slave is sent, 
Charged with his little scrip, has scarcely spent 
His mite at school, ere all his bosom glows 
With the fond hope he nevermore foregoes, 
To reach Demosthenes' or Tully's name, 
Rival of both in eloquence and fame ! — 
Yet, by this eloquence, alas ! expired 
Each orator, so envied, so admired ! 
Yet, by the rapid and resistless sway 
Of torrent genius, each was swept away ! 
Genius, for that, the baneful potion sped, 
And lopped, from this, the hands and gory head: 
While meaner pleaders unmolested stood, 
Nor stained the rostrum with their wretched blood. 

In the gibe, now to follow, of Juvenal, at Cicero's jingling 
braggadocio verse, our readers will note how ingeniously the 
effect on the ear, of the Latin line laughed at by the satirist, 



Juvenal. 223 



is imitated by Mr. Gifford in his translation. Juvenal avers 
that, for Cicero's own happiness, it would have been better 
for him to write nothing but such stuff as even that ludi- 
crous line of poetry, than it was to launch at Antony the 
flaming bolt of eloquence which cost the orator his life : 

" How fortuN. ATE A NATAL day was thine, 

In that LATE cousulate, Rome, of mine ! " 

Oh, soul of eloquence ! had all been found 

An empty vaunt, like this, a jingling sound, 

Thou might'st, in peace, thy humble fame have borne, 

And laughed the swords of Antony to scorn ! 

Yet this would I prefer — the common jest — 

To that which fired the fierce triumvir's breast, 

That second scroll, where eloquence divine 

Burst on the ear from every glowing line. 

And he too fell, whom Athens, wondering, saw 

Her fierce democracy, at will, o'erawe, 

And " fulinine over Greece !" Some angry Power 

Scowled, with dire influence, on his natal hour. 

Bleared with the glowing mass, the ambitious sire, 

From anvils, sledges, bellows, tongs, and fire, 

From temp'ring swords, his own more safe employ, 

To study rhetoric, sent his hopeful boy. 

JVIacaulay thinks that Johnson's passage, parallel to the fore- 
going — a passage descriptive of the disappointments that 
dog the literary life — is finer than the original which it imi- 
tates. We condense the Englishman's imitation here. It 
is highly autobiographic in spirit. You must think of John- 
son's memorable letter of indignation to Chesterfield, about 
the once proposed dedication to that nobleman of his English 
dictionary, and you must think of the debtor's prison, not 
unknown to authors of Johnson's day — when you read the 
pregnant allusion following, to the " patron [the first edition 
read 'garret'] and the jail ": 

When first the college rolls receive his name, 
The young enthusiast quits his ease for fame ; 



224 College Latin Course in English. 

Proceed, illustrious youth, 
And Virtue guard thee to the throne of Truth ! 

Yet hope not life from grief or danger free, 
Nor think the doom of man revers'd for thee. 
Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, 
And pause awhile from letters to be wise ; 
There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, 
Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail. 
See nations, slowly wise and meanly just, 
To buried merit raise the tardy bust. 
If dreams yet flatter, once again attend, 
Hear Lydiat's life, and Galileo's end. 

Garrick pronounced Johnson's poem " as hard as Greek." 
It certainly is not very easy reading. The passage just 
quoted was so charged with personal reminiscence, to Johnson 
himself, that he, it is said, burst into tears over it, when once 
reading the poem aloud at Mrs. Thrale's. 

The topics successively treated by Juvenal are Wealth, 
Power, Eloquence, Military Fame, Long Life, Personal Beauty, 
as objects of human desire likely, even if gained, to involve 
the gainer in special disappointment and misery. Hannibal, 
Alexander, Xerxes, are the historical examples adduced, of 
thirst for the vain delight of warlike renown. A wild desire. 
Juvenal declares it, and says (Gifford's translation) : 

Yet has this wild desire, in other days, 
This boundless avarice of a few for praise, 
This frantic rage for names to grace a tomb, 
Involved whole countries in one general doom ; 
Vain " rage ! " the roots of the wild fig-tree rise, 
Strike through the marble, and their memory dies ! 

The "wild fig-tree " of Juvenal is, no doubt, the allusion 
intended in Tennyson's " Princess ": 

" though the rough kex break 
The starred mosaic, and the wild goat hang 
Upon the pillar, and the wild fig-tree split 
Their monstrous idols." 



Juvenal. 



Juvenal's passage about Hannibal is one of the finest in 
the satire. The words, " Expende Hannibalem," meaning 
" Weigh Hannibal " — that is, weigh the inurned ashes, or the 
buried dust, that alone remain as relic of the living man — 
these two words have become a not infrequent literary- 
quotation used to set forth the "little measure " to which the 
mightiest dead are shrunk. Hodgson dilutes, but dilutes 
rather successfully, as follows : 

How are the mighty changed to dust ! How small 
The urn that holds what once was Hannibal ! 

Now Gifford's version of Juvenal's satirical homily on 
Hannibal : 

Produce the urn that Hannibal contains, , 

And weigh the mighty dust, which yet remains : 
And is this all? Yet this was once the bold, 
The aspiring chief, whom Afric could not hold, 
Though stretched in breadth from where the Atlantic roars, 
To distant Nilus, and his sun-burnt shores ; 
In length, from Carthage to the burning zone, 
Where other moors, and elephants are known. 
— Spain conquered, o'er the Pyrenees he bounds: 
Nature opposed her everlasting mounds, 
Her Alps, and snows ; o'er these, with torrent force, 
He pours, and rends through rocks his dreadful course. 
Already at his feet Italia lies ; — 

Yet thundering on, " Think nothing done," he cries, 
" Till Rome, proud Rome, beneath my fury falls, 
And Afric's standards float along her walls ! 
Big words ! — but view his figure ! — view his face ! 
O, for some master-hand the lines to trace, 
As through the Etrurian swamps, by floods increas'd, 
The one-eyed chief urged his Getulian beast ! 

But what ensued ? Illusive Glory, say. 
Subdued on Zama's memorable day, 
He flies in exile to a petty state, 
With headlong haste ! and, at a despot's gate, 
Sits, mighty suppliant! of his life in doubt, 
Till the Bithynian's morning nap be out. 
10* 



226 College Latin Course in English. 

No swords, nor spears, nor stones from engines hurled, 
Shall quell the man whose frown alarmed the world : 
The vengeance due to Cannse's fatal field, 
And floods of human gore, a ring shall yield ! 
Fly, madman, fly ! at toil and danger mock, 
Pierce the deep snow, and scale the eternal rock, 
To please the rhetoricians, and become 
A declamation for the boys of Rome ! 

Charles XII. of Sweden serves Johnson for his modern in- 
stance, matched against the Roman's Hannibal. On Charles 
for text, Johnson is fired to preach in sonorous rhymes his 
very best sermon. " Juvenal's Hannibal must yield to John- 
son's Charles," says Macaulay. But let our readers judge. 
Here is Johnson : 

On what foundation stands the warrior's pride, 
How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide. 
A frame of adamant, a soul of fire, 
No dangers fright him, and no labors tire ; 
O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain, 
Unconquer'd lord of pleasure and of pain ; 
No joys to him pacific sceptres yield, 
War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field. 
Behold surrounding kings their pow'rs combine, 
And one capitulate, and one resign : 
Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain ; 
* Think nothing gain'd,' he cries, * till naught remain, 
On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly, 
And all be mine beneath the polar sky.' 
The march begins, in military state, 
And nations on his eye suspended wait ; 
Stern Famine guards the solitary coast, 
And Winter barricades the realms of Frost ; 
He comes, nor want nor cold his course delay 1— 
Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day : 
The vanquish'd hero leaves his broken bands, 
And shows his miseries in distant lands ; 
Condemn'd a needy supplicant to wait, 
While ladies interpose, and slaves debate. 



Juvenal. 227 



But did not Chance at length her error mend? 
Did no subverted empire mark his end ? 
Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound? 
Or hostile millions press him to the ground ? 
His fall was destin'd to a barren strand, 
A petty fortress, and a dubious hand ; 
He left the name at which the world grew pale, 
To point a moral, or adorn a tale. 

So much perhaps will do in the way of paralleling John- 
son with Juvenal. In what remains, from this point onward 
to the end, of the two poems, both poets are at their best in 
fecund conception and in felicitous execution. We, how- 
ever, will refrain from Johnson and confine ourselves to 
Juvenal. At the same time, we cordially commend to read- 
ers that have the taste and the leisure for the purpose, a con- 
tinued comparison of the modern with the ancient poem. 

Juvenal's satiric genius fairly revels in describing the 

wretchedness of old age. The desire of long life, he says, 

^ntails, if gratified, unnumbered ills. These ills certainly 

^ere never more powerfully portrayed than they are here 

ortrayed by Juvenal : 

Strength, beauty, and a thousand charms beside, 
With sweet distinction, youth from youth divide ; 
While age presents one universal face ; 
A faltering voice, a weak find trembling pace, 
An ever-dropping nose, a forehead bare, 
And toothless gums to mumble o'er its fare. 
Poor wretch ! behold him, tottering to his fall, 
So loathsome to himself, wife, children, all, 
That those who hoped the legacy to share, 
And flattered long — disgusted, disappear. 
The sluggish palate dulled, the feast no more 
Excites the same sensations as of yore ; 
Taste, feeling, all, a universal blot, 
The dearest joys of sense remembered not. 

Another loss ! — no joy can song inspire, 
Though famed Seleucus lead the warbling quire : 



228 College Latin Course in English. 

The sweetest airs escape him ; and the lute, 
Which thrills the general ear, to him is mute. 
He sits, perhaps,' too distant : bring him near ; 
Alas ! 'tis still the same : he scarce can hear 
The deep-toned horn, the trumpet's clanging sound, 
And the loud blast which shakes the benches round. 
Even at his ear, his slave must bawl the hour, 
And shout the comer's name, with all his power ! 

These their shrunk shoulders, those their hams bemoan , 
This hath no eyes, and envies that with one : 
This takes, as helpless at the board he stands, 
His food, with bloodless lips, from others' hands ; 
While that, whose eager jaws, instinctive, spread 
At every feast, gapes feebly to be fed, 
Like Progne's brood, when, laden with supplies, 
From bill to bill the fasting mother flies. 

But other ills, and worse, succeed to those : 
His limbs long since were gone ; his memory goes. 
Poor driveler ! he forgets his servants quite, 
Forgets, at morn, with whom he supped at night ; 
Forgets the children lie begot and bred ; 
And makes a strumpet heiress in their stead. 

The allusion to Prog'ne is the translator's, not Juven? 
own. Progne was one of Ovid's women, changed to a swalK* 

Two or three lines of Johnson's imitation are too good' 11 * 
after all, to be quoted here : 

Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage. 

From Marlborough's eyes the tears of dotage flow, 
And Swift expires a driveler and a show. 

Juvenal prolongs his detail of the miseries uncon ous ly 
invoked in prayers for longevity, through a hundred ies or 
so additional to those which we have given. Out of- omer > 
Nestor is cited as a witness, and Ulysses's father, La£ s > an d 
Pe'leus, father to Achilles — all living to deplore t :r chil- 
dren dead or lost ; Priam, too, surviving the gloryf Troy, 
and Hec'uba transformed to a barking bitch. Mi'ida'tes, 



Juvenal. 229 



then, is summoned, and Croesus with the legend of Solon 
admonishing him ; and aged Marius bereft of every thing 
but life ; and Pompey recovering from a Campanian fever, 
only to encounter in Egypt a worse doom of death. By the 
mocking irony of fate, conspirators Len'tu-lus, Ceth-e'gus, 
Cat'i-line escaped at least the indignity of bodily mutilation 
in dying. Readers depressed by all this remorseless realism 
of the satirist describing old age, may turn forward a num- 
ber of pages and, from Cicero's store, refresh themselves as 
they can, with the suave consolations of the philosopher 
treating the same subject. 

The last topic treated in the satire is that of Personal 
Beauty. Juvenal, with great power, exhibits the spectacle, 
so familiar in history, of 

Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand 
The downward slope to death. 

We shall not follow the satirist in this part of his poem. 
Some of the strongest strokes in it are of a nature that unfits 
them to be reproduced in these pages. And we need to say 
that the dotted lines in previous extracts, have, more than 
once, marked the omission of verses which we could not 
properly show. In barely a single instance foregoing — where, 
for completion of thought, it seemed necessary to retain the 
line — we even ventured on a silent change of half a dozen 
words, in order so to make the frankness of Juvenal less in- 
tolerable to modern taste. 

Here is a couplet of Gifford's, translating with spirit a sen- 
tence of Juvenal's, in the latter part of his satire, that well 
deserves its fame : 

A woman scorned is pitiless as fate, 

For there the dread of shame adds stings to hate. 

Every student of history is qualified, but a Roman under 
the empire was peculiarly qualified, to appreciate the justness 



230 College Latin Course in English. 

of the sentiment. Congreve's couplet will naturally occur to 
some minds : 

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, 
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned. 

The conclusion of all is well-nigh Christian — in spirit, 
though at points the form is pagan enough. We present it 
in the prose translation, which is very readable, furnished in 
Bonn's Classical Library: 

Is there then nothing for which men shall pray ? If you will take ad- 
vice, you will allow the deities themselves to determine what may be ex- 
pedient for us, and suitable to our condition. For, instead of pleasant 
things, the gods will give us all that is most fitting. Man is dearer to 
them than to himself. We, led on by the impulse of our minds, by blind 
and headstrong passions, pray for wedlock, and issue by our wives ; but 
it is known to them what our children will prove ; of what character our 
wife will be ! Still, that you may have somewhat to pray for, and vow 
to their shrines the entrails and consecrated mincemeat of the white 
porker, your prayer must be that you may have a sound mind in a sound 
body. Pray for a bold spirit, free from all dread of death ; that reckons 
the closing scene of life among nature's kindly boons ; that can endure 
labor, whatever it be ; that knows not the passion of anger ; that covets 
nothing ; that deems the gnawing cares of Hercules, and all his cruel 
toils, far preferable to the joys of Venus, rich banquets, and the downy 
couch of Sar-dan-a-pa'lus. I show thee what thou canst confer upon 
thyself. The only path that surely leads to a life of peace lies through 
virtue. If we have wise foresight, thou, Fortune, hast no divinity. It 
is we that make thee a deity, and place thy throne in heaven ! 

As might, from the foregoing, be guessed, the well-worn 
phrase, mens sana in corpore sa?io, "a sound mind in a sound 
body," is Juvenal's. In proposing the combination thus 
named, as a good of life proper to be prayed for, Juvenal 
makes the impression of being himself a well-attempered 
mind judging as soundly as a pagan could, of the chief earthly 
human need. 

There is a note struck in the conclusion to Juvenal's great 
masterpiece of satire, not far out of chord with the closing 



Juvenal. 231 



lines of Bryant's Thanatopsis. One word alone in the Amer- 
ican's strain distinguishes it in tone from the Roman's. 
That word is "trust." But trust, in prospect of death, is a 
Christian idea, and Juvenal was no Christian. To face death 
without fear, but also without trust, — that was Roman ; and 
Roman of Romans was Juvenal. How one sighs, and vainly 
sighs, with desire to have sweetened the bravery and the 
scorn of many of those majestic men of Rome with the meek- 
ness of trust and obedience toward Jesus! This, however, 
is a sentiment that will visit the heart still more naturally, 
and still more impressively, as, in the following pages, one 
goes on to familiar acquaintance with Cicero and Pliny, and 
with the friends of those two most vividly modern of Roman 
literary men. 



VII. 
CICERO. 



In a former volume of this series, we paid such attention 
as we could to Cicero, in his capacity of orator. We have 
now to consider Cicero again, this time in his more general 
capacity of literary man. We may begin with a sketch, 
necessarily very brief, of his character and career. 

Cicero is beyond comparison the most modern of the an- 
cients. We scarce seem to be breathing the atmosphere of 
antiquity when we are dealing with Cicero. Especially in 
reading his letters, we unconsciously forget that the writer 
of these living lines died near nineteen hundred years ago. 
Cicero was a most human-hearted man, possessing breadth 
enough of temperament and of sympathy to ally him with all 
races and all ages of his kind. In Arpinum in Italy, the 
birthplace of one of Rome's greatest generals, Rome's great- 
est orator was born. Caius Marius and Marcus Tullius 
Cicero were fellow-townsmen by birth. Cicero was not of 



232 



College Latin Course in JSfiglist 



patrician blood; but his father was a gentleman in circum- 
stances that enabled him to give his son the best advantages 
for education. These of course were to be found in Rome, 
and to Rome accordingly young Cicero was sent. Here, at 
sixteen years of age, the future orator began his studies in 
law. He was a hard student, but he was no mere sedentary 
recluse. He kept up an assiduous practice in elocution, and 




CICERO. 



he frequented drawing-rooms in which he could enjoy the 
society of gifted and accomplished women. It would be 
curious to guess how much he was indebted to this latter 
influence for the urbanity and grace that afterward distin- 
guished his literary character. 

No great man perhaps ever lived that was naturally less 
fitted to be a soldier than was Cicero. But some military 
experience Cicero too must have, if he would get on in the 



Cicero. 233 

Roman world of politics. For a year or two, therefore, "the 
gown," to invert his own famous phrase, "yielded to arms," 
in the case of Cicero. The youthful law student became a 
soldier, under the father of Pompey. Cicero's soldiership 
was not to be a very eventful episode in his career. He was 
soon back in Rome, immersed again in his congenial intel- 
lectual pursuits. 

Scarcely had he made his brilliant beginning in the open 
practice of the law, when he found it convenient, perhaps 
necessary for his health, to enjoy an interval of change and 
recreation. This he sought by visiting Athens, at that time 
the one chief city of the soul to such a man as Cicero. At 
Athens, he formed, or cemented, a friendship destined to 
make the friend associated with him in it as immortal in 
memory as himself. There was now residing in that city a 
Roman who, in the sequel of his life, would grow so much a 
Greek in spirit as to acquire the inseparable surname of 
Atticus. Atticus became a life-long friend of Cicero. The 
two, in after years, maintained, during almost a quarter of a 
century, a familiar correspondence. Near four hundred let- 
ters from Cicero to Atticus remain to this day. These form 
a mine of information, both as to the interesting personality 
of Cicero, and as to the current political events of some 
twenty-five years belonging to one of the most momentous 
periods in the history of the human race. From this pre- 
cious treasury of letters, we shall presently draw for illustra- 
tion at once of the literary, and of the personal, character of 
the writer. 

From Athens, Cicero made a tour of Asia Minor, availing 
himself of an opportunity at Rhodes to resume for a time 
his studies in rhetoric, under a former tutor of his. He mar- 
ried soon after returning to Rome. Rather inexplicable it 
seems to us, that, after a reasonably contented married ex- 
perience of thirty years with Te-ren'tia his wife, he should, 
without even a good pretext that we know, have separated 



234 College Latin Course in English. 

her from him by divorce. Loose views of marriage, shared 
by him in common with the general paganism of his age, were 
probably the secret of this act of Cicero's — as well as of a 
second divorce that soon followed a second marriage of the 
orator. Terentia long outlived her illustrious husband, and, 
as Dion Cassius tells us, consoled herself three times succes- 
sively by subsequent marriages. 

Cicero rapidly made himself conspicuous at Rome. Round 
after round, he climbed the ladder of political promotion, 
until he became qusestor in Sicily. The quaestorship was 
an office that had to do with revenue and finance. Cicero 
distinguished himself as qusestor, by his ability and by his 
probity. The Sicilians were delighted with this upright, 
accomplished, and genial official from Rome. Their praises 
almost turned the young fellow's head. Cicero afterward 
rallied himself in public with admirable humor, for the weak- 
ness of vanity indulged by him on occasion of the displays 
that were made in his honor by the grateful and effusive 
Sicilians. The allusion to this experience of his over-sus- 
ceptible youth was artfully introduced by the orator to en- 
liven a certain speech that he was making. Such allusions 
are easily made by a speaker who knows that his hearers 
will be conscious of a strong contrast, in his own favor, be- 
tween what he was once, and what he is universally confessed 
to be now. " I thought in my heart," Cicero said, " that the 
people at Rome must be talking of nothing but my qusestor- 
ship." He was duly discharged of this pleasing illusion — he 
proceeds to tell us how. One is reminded of Washington 
Irving's story, told by him at his own expense. " You bear 
a famous name," remarked to him a London tradesman, as, 
for some purpose of business, Irving gave the man his ad- 
dress. Irving's heart fluttered complacently over this sup- 
posed acknowledgment of his fame ; he had just published 
a successful book. " Yes," went on the tradesman, " Edward 
Irving is a wonderful preacher." In the same spirit, Cicero 



Cicero. 235 

conceived the following strain of allusion to himself — which 
may be taken as a good specimen of the Ciceronian pleas- 
antry, and Cicero was rated a very lively man : 

The people of Sicily had devised for me unprecedented honors. So 
I left the island in a state of great elation, thinking that the Roman 
people would at once offer me everything without my seeking. But 
when I was leaving my province, and on my road home, I happened to 
land at Pu-te'o-li just at the time when a good many of our most fash- 
ionable people are accustomed to resort to that neighborhood. I very 
nearly collapsed, gentlemen, when a man asked me what day I had left 
Rome, and whether there was any news stirring? When I made 
answer that I was returning from my province — " O ! yes, to be sure," 
said he ; " Africa, I believe ? " " No," said I to him, considerably annoyed 
and disgusted ; " from Sicily." Then somebody else, with an air of a 
man who knew all about it, said to him—" What ! don't you know that 
he was quaestor at Syracuse? " [It was at Li-ly-bae'um — quite a differ- 
ent district.] No need to make a long story of it ; I swallowed my 
indignation, and made as though I, like the rest, had come there for 
the waters. 

Cicero's " improvement " of the lesson w T as highly charac- 
teristic, both of the Roman and of Cicero. He did not use 
it to impress upon his mind a more judicious opinion of him- 
self. He simply turned it to thrifty account for his own per- 
sonal advantage in Roman politics. With great frankness — 
a frankness, by the way, which proves that bald self-seeking 
might without shame be openly confessed in that ancient 
pagan world — Cicero says he learned, from this passage in 
his early experience, how important it was for his own profit 
that he should keep himself constantly familiar before the 
eyes of his countrymen at Rome, and that he should sedu- 
lously practice every art of popularity. The following are 
the orator's own words. We use for the present extract a 
translation given by Mr. Collins in his volume on Cicero, be- 
longing to the series of Ancient Classics for English Readers. 
(This series is now obtainable in two American reprints, a 
fairly good cheap one, issued by Mr. John B. Alden, New 



236 College Latin Course in English. 

York, and a better one, at a higher price, issued by Messrs. 
J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia) : 

But I am not sure, gentlemen, whether that scene did not do me 
more good than if everybody then and there had publicly congratulated 
me. For after I had thus found out that the people of Rome have 
somewhat deaf ears, but very keen and sharp eyes, I left off cogitating 
what people would hear about me ; I took care that thenceforth they 
should see me before them every day : I lived in their sight, 1 stuck 
close to the Forum ; the porter at my gate refused no man admittance — 
my very sleep was never allowed to be a plea against an audience. 

How thoroughly a politician in spirit Cicero was, and how 
willingly he confessed that fact to the people of Rome — whom 
he flattered in the very act of so confessing it — is well shown 
in the following sentences, not given by Mr. Collins, from 
the same speech that furnished the foregoing citations: 

This is the inalienable privilege of a free people, and especially of this 
the chief people of the world, the lord and conqueror of all nations, to 
be able by their votes to give or to take away what they please to or 
from any one. And it is our duty, — ours, I say, who are driven about by 
the winds and waves of this people, to bear the whims of the people with 
moderation, to strive to win over their affections when alienated from 
us, to retain them when we have won them, to tranquillize them when 
in a state of agitation. If we do not think honors of any great conse- 
quence, we are not bound to be subservient to the people ; if we do 
strive for them, then we must be unwearied in soliciting them. 

The Roman people enforced a good deal of meekness in 
their candidates for office. Successful politicians had to 
learn the distasteful art of stooping to conquer. 

The first really great display of oratory from Cicero, was 
his impeachment of Verres. Verres had been prsetor in 
Sicily, and had there signalized his administration of office 
with more than normal Roman cruelty. Cicero brought him 
to trial. It was a conspicuous occasion — conspicuous by the 
gravity of the accusation, by the rank of the accused, but 
above all by the eloquence of the accuser. Verres bent be- 
fore the blast. Without waiting the issue of the trial, he 



Cicero. 237 

withdrew to Marseilles ; but Cicero finished and published 
his speech notwithstanding — as dreadful an arraignment for 
crime as perhaps ever was launched from human lips against 
a criminal. Cicero was from this moment the foremost 
orator of Rome. Every thing now lay possible before him. 
He was soon consul. His merit and his fortune together 
made his consulship the most illustrious in the annals of 
Rome. That year was the year of the conspiracy of Catiline. 
This great political crime, Cicero had the good luck and the 
sagacity mingled, to detect, the courage, with the eloquence, 
to denounce, and the practical address completely to foil. His 
conduct gave him the proud title of Father of his Country. 
No one ever relished success more frankly than did Cicero. 
He never wearied of sounding out the praises of his own 
consulship. Cicero in fact was deeply encased with panoply 
of self-complacency. This armor served him well for de- 
fense against many an inward wound; but Cicero's vanity, 
and an insincerity in him that was close of kin to vanity, 
have proved indelible blemishes on the fair face of his fame. 
Out of the heart itself of the success achieved by him in 
the matter of Catiline, sprang one of the greatest of the 
calamities that marked Cicero's checkered, and at last trag- 
ical, career. A bill was introduced into the senate empow- 
ering Pompey, now returned in triumph from the war against 
Mithridates, to " restore the violated constitution." This 
ominous language had Cicero for its aim. Cicero had put 
Roman citizens to death without regular trial. Julius Caesar 
was demagogue enough to support the bill. The bill failed in 
the senate, but Cicero did not escape. A personal enemy of his 
got the people of Rome to pass sentence of banishment upon 
him. The better classes were sorry, the senate was sorry — in 
vain. Both Caesar and Pompey, on good terms then with each 
other, refused their intervention in Cicero's favor, and the 
great ex-consul, late flourishing like a green bay-tree, went, 
stripped of possessions and of honors — and, one grieves 



238 College Latin Course in English. 

to say it, with the pith of inward courage and dignity gone 
out of him — into an exile, not so long as Ovid's, but hardly 
less inglorious than his. He had, in prospect of what im- 
pended, gravely asked his friends whether he had not better 
make away with himself out of hand, and have done with 
life altogether. 

A great compensation awaited the disconsolate exile. 
After a year and a half, Cicero was brought back to Rome 
like a conqueror. No military triumph decreed him could 
have done him half the honor, or have yielded him half the 
generous joy, that now overflowingly filled his cup in the 
magnificent popular ovation spontaneously prolonged to the 
returning patriot through an imperial progress on his part of 
twenty-four days from Brundusium to Rome. Cicero's heart 
swelled with unbounded elation. The height of the joy was 
as had been the depth of the sorrow. Let Cicero himself 
describe his triumph for us. We draw once more from 
Mr. Collins's little volume : 

Who does not know what my return home was like? How the people 
of Brundusium held out to me, as I might say, the right hand of wel- 
come on behalf of all my native land? From thence to Rome my 
progress was like a march of all Italy. There was no district, no town, 
corporation, or colony, from which a public deputation was not sent to 
congratulate me. Why need I speak of my arrival at each place ? how 
the people crowded the streets in the towns ; how they flocked in from 
the country — fathers of families with wives- and children ? How can I 
describe those days, when all kept holiday, as though it were some high 
festival of the immortal gods, in joy for my safe return ? That single 
day was to me like immortality ; when I returned to my own city, when 
I saw the Senate and the population of all ranks come forth to greet me, 
when Rome herself looked as though she had wrenched herself from her 
foundations to rush to embrace her preserver. For she received me in 
such sort, that not only all sexes, ages, and callings, men and women of 
every rank and degree, but even the very walls, the houses, the temples, 
seemed to share the universal joy. 

But Cicero was fallen on evil days. Rome sat uneasily on 
a repressed, but not long repressible, volcano. The time 



Cicero. z^q 

providentially appointed for Caesar was drawing near. The 
city was full of disturbance — -the undulation to and fro of an 
eruption preparing, but not yet prepared. Cicero, however, 
goes on a few years in prosperous practice of his profession, 
and in the fruition of accumulating honors. He is then 
got out of the way of rivals, to whom he might be trouble- 
some in their joint contention against him for power, by 
being sent as governor to Cilicia. This governorship pre- 
sented to Cicero an opportunity for enriching himself. 
But he was already rich, and, to do him but justice, he 
never seemed greedy for more. He governed his province 
purely and wisely. When he returned to Rome, with the 
mild glory of just and successful administration surround- 
ing him, he found the issue ready to be joined in deadly 
duel for empire between Caesar and Pompey. He cast 
in his own lot with Pompey. But he did not wholly trust 
Pompey. Indeed he despaired of the republic — which- 
ever might win, Pompey or Caesar. A despotism was, he 
thought, in either event, the certain result. A despotism 
indeed resulted, but it was a better, because a stronger, and 
a wiser, despotism than would have been the despotism that 
Cicero, half-heartedly and haltingly, seems to have preferred. 
Cf Cicero's relation to Caesar, during the brief term of Cae- 
sar's enjoyment of that supreme power which, as Pliny tells 
us the conqueror himself used to say, it had cost a million 
and a half of human lives, in Gaul alone, to win — enough will 
be indicated in the extracts from Cicero's letters to follow. 
Cicero was not of those who conspired against Caesar, but 
he rejoiced at the great man's bloody death — openly, almost 
savagely, rejoiced. He thought that the republic — that 
dream, that ideal, of his love — was about to be restored. 
But he thought wrong, and he paid the price of his mistake 
with his blood. 

The period during which Cicero, with his tongue, waged 
war against Antony, was the most truly glorious of his life. 



240 College Latin Course in English. 

Rufus Choate has celebrated it, with pomp of numerous 
prose, beating in a rhythm answering to the rhythm of Cicero 
himself, in a splendid discourse on the " Eloquence of Revo- 
lutionary Periods." Cicero was a true hero now. His face, 
his form, his gait, are transfigured, like those of O-dys'seus at 
the gift of Pallas Ath-e'ne. One is pathetically comforted 
and glad, to behold the orator, the statesman, the philosopher, 
the man — whom, before this, one could not wholly admire — 
divested at length of the weakness of vanity and of fear, 
marching forward erect and elate, like a demigod out of 
Homer, and as with a kind of menacing and triumphing wel- 
come to his doom. His doom met him with equal advancing 
steps. The story is familiar, but it bears to be told again 
and again. 

The triumvirate had triumphed over the republicans, and 
therefore over Cicero. They made out a list for death, and 
Antony included Cicero's name. It was the usurper's re- 
venge for Cicero's philippics against him. Cicero was at his 
Tusculan villa when he heard that he was proscribed. He 
sought to escape from the country. But life was no longer 
dear to him, and, after some irresolution, he decided to die by 
his own act. He would first rest a while, and then go hence. 
While he was resting, Antony's emissaries came. Cicero's 
servants hastened, with their master borne on a litter, toward 
the sea. But the soldiers were too quick for them. The 
servants affectionately and bravely addressed themselves for 
fight with their pursuers. But Cicero forbade them. He 
stretched forth his head and neck from the litter, and sum- 
moned the soldiers to take what they wanted. They wanted 
his head and his hands. These they bore with speed to 
Antony in the forum. Antony feasted his famished grudge 
with the sight, and had them fixed for general view on the 
rostra from which, in better times, Cicero so often had 
spoken. The tears that Rome shed were wept perhaps as 
much for herself, as for her Tully. 



Cicero. 



241 




Tully's praises were silent during the time of Augustus — 
for to praise Cicero would have been to blame the emperor 
— but they broke out again soon 
after, and they have since filled the 
world. Cicero's name is second, if 
it is not first, among the best glories 
of Rome. 

It was during the troublous times 
which fell after the republic had 
ceased and before the triumvirate 
had begun, that Cicero solaced him- 
self with philosophy. Cicero was 
not properly a philosopher. He 
wrote philosophy, not as philosopher, 
but as man of letters. He sought 
to understand the philosophers of 
Greece, Plato especially, and to in- 
terpret these to his countrymen. 
He sought even to construct out 
of the various philosophies of others an eclectic philosophical 
system of his own. The product of Cicero's efforts may not 
be very valuable philosophy, but it is certainly delightful 
literature. The essay on Old Age, and the essay on Friend- 
ship, written, as nearly all Cicero's miscellaneous works were 
written, in the form of dialogues, are rather to be considered 
essays merely, in the modern sense of that word, than trea- 
tises in philosophy, even as the ancients understood philos- 
ophy. The " De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum " (" Con- 
cerning the Ends of Life "), the " Academica," "The Tus- 
culan Disputations," so called from the scene in which the 
dialogue is supposed to take place, namely, Tusculum, where 
was a villa of Cicero's, the " De Officiis " (" Concerning 
Moral Duties"), are his principal works in philosophy. The 
last-named work is addressed by the writer to his son, at the 
time a student at Athens. It may be compared and con- 
11 



242 College Latin Course in English. 



trasted with Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son. Dr. A, 
P. Peabody has lately translated the De Officiis, and the De 
Senectute. From his version, we are permitted by him 
and his publishers to draw some extracts, to stand as speci- 
mens of Cicero's philosophical and ethical vein. Cicero is 
great by quantity, as well as by quality, and we can do little 
more than furnish appetizing tastes of the feast that is spread 
for all comers, in his manifold literary works. 

We begin with selections — few and brief they must be — 
from Cicero's letters. It will be satisfactory, when we come 
to read his ethics, to have learned what manner of man is 
behind the words that are spoken. 

There is nothing else whatever saved to us from the so- 
called ancient world, that brings that world so near and 
makes it seem so modern, as do the letters of Cicero. These 
compose a considerable volume, from which copious selec- 
tions have been made accessible to the English public, in 
very good translation. Mr. G. E. Jeans, of Oxford Univer- 
sity, England, has lately published a scholarly version of 
what may now be regarded as the accepted standard collec- 
tion, that of Mr. Watson, from the voluminous extant cor- 
respondence of Cicero. In this collection, some letters, 
written not by Cicero but to him, are justly included with 
his own epistles, as throwing a necessary light of illustration 
upon these. The correspondence with Atticus is, both in 
quantity and in quality, the most important part of the vol- 
ume. This constitutes, in fact, as already suggested, a valu- 
able resource to historians for contemporary information 
on the course of events, and on the motives and the 
relations of public men, during the most momentous period 
in the history of Rome. We, of course, have here no 
room to exhibit fully this historical aspect of Cicero's let- 
ters. We strictly limit ourselves. We shall lay before our 
readers a letter or two of Cicero's bearing on his relation to 
Cassar, and then, having further cited some communications 



Cicero. 243 

exchanged between Cicero and one of his friends on the sub- 
ject of the death of the orator's beloved daughter, Tullia, 
turn our face reluctantly away from this section, still quiver- 
ing with its inextinguishable life, taken out of the very heart 
of ancient Roman society. 

Caesar was now master of the world. But Cicero was a suf- 
ficiently important figure in the world, for Caesar to court him 
— as princes have their way of courting great subjects. The 
dictator invited himself to dine with the orator. The time 
was mid-December, the place, uncertain — perhaps Pu-te'o-li, at 
any rate one among the many country residences of the rich 
and fortunate Cicero. The Saturnalia (feast of Saturn) were 
on, and it was a season of general freedom and hilarity. 
Cicero describes the occasion in a familiar letter to his 
friend Atticus. It has been conjectured by ingenious schol- 
ars that the Latin was never a spoken language, at least that 
it was never the vernacular of the populace of Rome. It 
seems too stately, too elaborate, too difficult in construction, 
so some have thought, ever to have accommodated itself to 
the uses of homely every-day life. But here surely Cicero 
bends it successfully to his colloquial need. Very different 
from the processional pomp of the most leisurely and most 
finished orations of Cicero, is the negligence, the freedom, 
the ease, with which he expresses himself, half humorously, 
and with much written in invisible ink between the lines, in 
the following letter. It needs to be explained that there was 
apparently a tacit playful understanding between Cicero and 
his half-Greek friend Atticus, that they should freely inter- 
lard the text of their correspondence with phrases borrowed 
from Greek. Mr. Jeans has, with excellent judgment, sought 
to reproduce the effect for us, by putting the Greek used by 
Cicero into an equivalent of French. Those readers of ours 
who know French, will readily excuse it, if, for the benefit of 
those readers of ours who do not, we hint in English the 
meaning of the few foreign phrases that here occur : 



244 College Latin Course in English. 

Oh, what a formidable guest to have had ! and yet je nin suis J>as 
fdche [I am not sorry] he was in such a very agreeable mood. But 
after his arrival at Philippus's house, on the evening of the second day of 
the Saturnalia, the whole establishment was so crowded with soldiers 
that even the room where Caesar himself was to dine could hardly be 
kept clear from them ; it is a fact that there were two thousand men ! 
Of course I was nervous about what might be the case with me next 
day, and so Cassius Barba came to my assistance ; he gave me some 
men on guard. The camp was pitched out of doors ; my villa was made 
secure. On the third day of the Saturnalia he stayed at Philippus's till 
near one, and admitted nobody (accounts with Balbus, I suppose); then 
took a walk on the beach. After two to the bath : then he heard about 
Ma-mur'ra ; he made no objection. He was then rubbed down with oil, 
and dinner began. It was his intention se /aire vomir [to take a 
vomit], and consequently he ate and drank sans peur [freely], and 
with much satisfaction. And certainly every thing was very good, and 
well served ; nay more, I may say that 

4 Though the cook was good, 
'Twas Attic salt that flavored best the food.' 

There were three dining-rooms besides, where there was a very hospit- 
able reception for the gentlemen of his suite; while the inferior class of 
freedmen and slaves had abundance at any rate ; for as to the better 
class, they had a more refined table. In short, I think I acquitted my- 
self like a man. The guest, however, was not the sort of person to 
whom you would say, ' I shall be most delighted if you will come here 
again on your way back ;' once is enough. As to our conversation, it 
was mostly like that of two savants [men of letters]; nothing was said 
au grand serieux [in a very serious vein]. Well, I will only say that he 
was greatly pleased, and seemed to enjoy himself. He told me that he 
should be one day at Puteoli, and the next near Baise. Here you have 
the story of his visit — or, shall I say, 'billeting'? — which, I told you, 
was a thing one would shrink from, but did not give much trouble. I am 
for Tusculum next after a short stay here. 

When he was passing Dolabella's house, but nowhere else, the whole 
guard was paraded in arms on either side of him as he rode ; I have it 
from Nicias. 

The allusion about Mamurra is obscure. Generally it is 
taken to mean certain scathing epigrams on Caesar and Ma- 
murra, from the pen of the poet Catullus. " He never 



Cicero. 245 



changed countenance," is Middleton's rendering, in place of 
Mr. Jeans's ' v he made no objection." 

The taking of a vomit before and after meals was a not 
uncommon Roman habit of the times. It was not only an 
epicure's expedient for better enjoying, and enjoying more 
safely, the pleasures of the table, but it was a current med- 
ical prescription for improving the health. Caesar's purposed 
post - prandial vomit (ante - prandial, Middleton makes it) 
was not therefore an exceptional bit of epicurism. Rather, 
it is to be regarded as good guestship on his part. Caesar 
thus intimated to Cicero that he expected a good dinner, 
and was intending to do his host's fare full dictatorial justice. 

The quotation in verse is from Lucilius. Cicero has it 
again in his u De Finibus." "Or shall I say 'billeting'?" 
is Cicero's way of implying to Atticus that Caesar's visit, 
having been accepted rather than invited, might be looked 
upon as in the nature of a military quartering of himself by 
Caesar on his host's hospitality. We may venture however 
to guess, both from Cicero's characteristic genial good nat- 
ure and from his shrewd eye to the main chance, that Caesar 
was not suffered to feel any lack of seeming-spontaneous 
cordiality, in that day's entertainment. 

Cicero's relations to Caesar had naturally all along, after 
Caesar's definitive triumph, been a very delicate matter. 
Caesar, on his part, with that magnificent clemency, mixed 
in uncertain proportion with that far-sighted thrift, which 
equally belonged to his character, signalled Cicero in various 
ways, as much as to say, Let us be good friends with each 
other. Cicero consulted his own dignity by remaining some- 
what shy of Caesar. Perhaps too he was a little afraid of his 
formidable suitor. Besides, it may be that he did not at 
once see his way to preserving an appearance of consistency 
in his course, should he, a Pompeian, become suddenly an ad- 
herent of Caesar. Atticus counseled to Cicero complaisance 
toward Caesar. ' Send the great man some composition of 



246 College Latin Course in English. 

yours directly addressed to him,' Atticus suggested. Cicero 
finally made the draft of a letter to Cassar, and submitted it 
for judgment to his friends. Atticus thought it would do; 
but the others found it too free. Cicero would not alter it to 
suit them, and he finally kept it to himself. It became how- 
ever the subject of several interesting passages in Cicero's 
letters to Atticus. Cicero in these appears to better advan- 
tage as a man of spirit and character than perhaps upon the 
whole he deserves — for Cicero's strength was at times sadly 
offset by his weakness. Mr. Jeans, who seems inclined al- 
ways, as the fashion now is, to bear hardly on Cicero, does 
not translate these letters. We go to Middleton's Life of 
Cicero for our extracts:* 

As for the letter to Caesar, I was always very willing that they [Cic- 
ero's friends, before alluded to] should first read it ; for otherwise I had 
both been wanting in civility to them, and if I had. happened to give 
offence, exposed myself also to danger. They have dealt ingenuously 
and kindly with me in not concealing what they thought ; but what 
pleases me the most is, that by requiring so many alterations they give 
me an excuse for not writing at all. As to the Parthian war, what had I 
to consider about it but that which I thought would please him ? for 
what subject was there else for a letter but flattery ? or if I had a mind 
to advise what I really took to be the best, could I have been at a loss 
for words? There is no occasion, therefore, for any letter: for where 
there is no great matter to be gained, and a slip, though not great, may 
make us uneasy, what reason is there to run any risk? especially when 
it is natural for him to think that as I wrote nothing to him before, so I 
should have written nothing now, had not the war been wholly ended : 
besides I am afraid lest he should imagine that I sent this as a sweet- 
ener for my "Cato." In short, I was heartily ashamed of what I had 
written ; and nothing could fall out more luckily than that it did not 
please. 

Cato had always stood up stoutly against Csesar, and on 
Cato's death Cicero had pronounced a panegyric upon him. 
Caesar found time afterward to publish a reply to this, so 
good, and conceived with such courtesy toward Cicero, that 
Cicero made it at last the long-waited-for occasion of his re- 



Cicero. 247 

turn signal to Caesar. Meantime, however, to Atticus still 
urging his friend to propitiate Caesar, Cicero writes again : 

As for writing to Csasar, I swear to you I cannot do it : nor is it yet 
the shame of it that deters me which ought to do it the most ; for how 
mean would it be to flatter when even to live is base in me ? But it. is 
not, as I was saying, this shame which hinders me, though I wish 
it did, for I should then be what I ought to be ; but I can think of 
nothing to write upon. As to those exhortations addressed to Alexander 
[the Great] by the eloquent and the learned of that time, you see on what 
points they turn : they are addressed to a youth inflamed with the thirst 
of true glory and desiring to be advised how to acquire it. On an occa- 
sion of such dignity words can never be wanting ; but what can I do on 
my subject ? Yet I had scratched as it were out of the block some faint 
resemblance of an image ; but because there were some things hinted in 
it a little better than what we see done every day, it was disliked. I am 
not at all sorry for it ; for had the letter gone, take my word for it, I 
should have had cause to repent. For do you not see that very scholar 
of Aristotle [Alexander the Great] a youth of the greatest parts and 
the greatest modesty, after he came to be called a king, grow proud, 
cruel, extravagant? Do you imagine that this man, ranked in the pro- 
cessions of the gods and enshrined in the same temple with Romulus, 
will be pleased with the moderate style of my letters ? It is better that 
he be disgusted at my not writing, than at what I write. In a word, let 
him do what he pleases ; for that problem which I once proposed to you 
and thought so difficult, in what way I should manage him, is over with 
me ; and in truth I now wish more to feel the effect of his resentment, 
be it what it will, than I was before afraid of it. 

Once more : " Let us have no more of this," writes Cicero, 
"but show ourselves half free by our silence and retreat." 

Anthony Trollope has a very readable life of Cicero. The 
author is throughout animated by a spirit of something like 
personal affection for his hero. The natural pugnacity, said 
to have belonged to Mr. Trollope's temperament, adds a zest 
of its own to what he writes on Cicero's behalf. He writes 
with unquestionable honesty of purpose, but with a piquant 
zeal of antagonism too, against Mr. Froude especially, but 
also against the rest of the recent revilers of Cicero. The 
scholarship displayed by Mr. Trollope, if not of the highest 



248 College Latin Course in English, 

order, is at least very creditable to this hard-worked man of 
many novels. To him belongs the credit of pointing out a 
mistake, that would be singular occurring in the pages of a more 
conscientious writer, committed by Mr. Froude, in translating 
a certain harmless expression of Cicero's as if it brutally 
suggested the idea of assassinating Caesar. The expression 
mistranslated is one found in the longer extract just now 
presented to our readers. Mr. Froude's fatuity in the mat- 
ter was singularly self-confuting. He supplied, in a note, 
every thing that the careful reader required to satisfy him- 
self of the blunder committed. Cicero's words, cited by 
Mr. Froude himself, are " Cum vivere ipsum turpe sit nobis'* 
Mr. Froude blunders by giving the word " ipsum' an impos- 
sible reference to Caesar, and so making the expression mean 
"when that he [Caesar] should be alive is a disgrace to us." 
The true sense is, "when the very fact of living [in such a 
state of things] is disgraceful to us." 

Cicero found, as we have said, his opportunity of offering 
sacrifice to the dictator. Of the letter which he finally wrote, 
he says to Atticus : 

I forgot to send you a copy of what I wrote to Caesar ; not for -the 
reason which you suspect, that I was ashamed to let you see how well 
I could flatter ; for in truth I wrote to him no otherwise than as if I was 
writing to an equal, for I really have a good opinion of his two books, as 
I told you when we were together, and wrote, therefore, both without 
flattering him, and yet so that he will read nothing, I believe, with 
more pleasure. 

Readers of the " Preparatory Latin Course " will remem- 
ber the strain of extravagant ascription to Caesar in which 
Cicero, on a signal occasion, expressed himself to the senate ; 
we allude to the celebrated oration for Marcus Marcellus. 
It will be interesting to bring forward a letter which Cicero 
writes to a valued friend of his bearing on the subject of this 
speech. The letter now referred to presents Caesar in a 
highly favorable light, and we are able to show it in the 



Cicero. 249 

translation of Mr. Jeans. Cicero writes from Rome to 
Servius Sulpicius Rufus, m Achaia. We abridge : 

You can venture to speak of your annoyance in a letter; we cannot 
even do that with safety ; not that for this our conqueror is to blame — 
it would be impossible to be more moderate than he is — but simply the 
fact of victory, which in a civil war is invariably tyrannical. In one 
respect only we have had the advantage ; in hearing, namely, of the res- 
toration of your colleague Marcellus a little earlier than you, and also, 
upon my honor, in seeing how that result was brought about. For be- 
lieve me when I say that since these troubles began — that is, since might 
was called in to decide a national question of right — this is the one dig- 
nified proceeding that has taken place. For Caesar himself, after com- 
plaining of the ' acrimony ' — this was the word he used — of Marcellus, 
and speaking in most complimentary terms of your fairness and discre- 
tion, suddenly announced his determination, which we scarcely hoped 
for, not to let his personal relations to Marcellus make him refuse the 
entreaty of the Senate on his behalf I should say that when Lucius 
Piso had called attention to the case of Marcellus, and Caius Marcellus 
had gone on his knees lo Caesar, the Senate went so far as to rise in a 
body, and approach Caesar in an attitude of entreaty. Well, I will only 
say that this day seemed to me so bright that there hovered, as it were, 
before my eyes a vision of the Republic springing into new life. 

Consequently, when all who had been asked to speak before me had 
expressed their gratitude to Caesar, with the exception of Volcatius, who 
said that if he had been in the same place he would certainly not have 
done the like, I changed my resolution on being asked for my opinion ; 
for I had quite determined, not, I may solemnly assure you, from in- 
difference, but from regret at the loss of my former position, to maintain 
an uninterrupted silence. This resolution of mine broke down utterly 
under such magnanimity on the part of Caesar and loyal self-sacrifice on 
that of the Senate, and accordingly I spoke at some length of our grati- 
tude to Caesar, and am afraid that now for other occasions I may have 
been thus putting out of my own power that retirement without dis- 
grace, the possession of which was my one consolation under my troubles. 
But all the same, since I have avoided the danger of giving offense to 
one who might perhaps infer that I do not recognize this as a Constitu- 
tion at all if I preserved an absolute silence, I shall repeat the experi- 
ment with moderation — or even err on this side of moderation, — but 
only enough to gratify at once his sovereign will and my own inclina- 
tions. For, although from quite early years every form of study and of 
11* 



250 College Latin Course in English. 

liberal accomplishments, and above all philosophy, have been my de- 
light, yet clay by day this passion is mastering me more — partly, I 
suppose, because age makes us riper to receive lessons of wisdom, and 
partly because of the corruption of the age — so that now there is noth- 
ing else at all which can relieve my mind from petty cares. You, I 
gather from your letters, are hindered by business in your literary work, 
but still the nights will now be a considerable help to you. 

The fruit of the clemency toward him of Caesar, Marcellus 
was fated never to enjoy, in actual return to his native Italy. 
He died by violence, in the manner described by Sulpicius 
to Cicero, as follows : 

On the 23d of May I landed at tie Pi-rae'us from Ep-i-dau'rus, and 
finding my old colleague Marcellus there, I spent a day in the place to 
enjoy his company. When I parted from him the next day, with the in- 
tention of going from Athens into Bceotia and finishing the rest of my 
judicial business, he was intending, as he told me, to sail round Mal'i-a 
to or in direction of Italy. Two days after this date, I being then just 
about to arrange for starting from Athens, about three o'clock or so in 
the moining Publius Pos-tu'mi-us, a friend of his, came to me and 
brought me the news that my colleague, Marcus Marcellus, had been 
stabbed after dinner-time by one of his friends, Publius Ma^ius Cilo. 
Pie had received two wounds, one in the stomach, the other on the head 
just by the ear, but still it was hoped that he might possibly recover : 
Magius had subsequently committed suicide. He himself had been sent 
to me by Marcellus to bring this news, and asked that I would sum- 
mon my own physicians. Having summoned them I started at once for 
the place just as day was breaking. I was only a short distance from 
the Piraeus when I was met by a slave of A-ci-di'uus with a note, in 
which it was stated that a little before daybreak Marcellus had breathed 
his last. So one of the noblest of men had fallen a victim to a most 
untimely death at the hand of one of the vilest ; to one whom his very 
enemies had spared for his worth a friend had been found to deal the 
death-blow ! 

A second letter of Sulpicius, included in Mr. Jeans's se- 
lection from the correspondence of Cicero, is one of consola- 
tion to his illustrious friend on the death of his daughter 
Tullia. This is a famous literary antique. It admirably 
shows what was the best that ancient paganism could offer 



Cicero. 251 

in the way of comfort to souls bereaved. Cicero's anguish 
at the loss of his daughter was poignant in the extreme. He 
cherished the plan of building at great cost a temple to her 
memory. There is no evidence that the plan was ever car- 
ried out. The fact that this father's grief for his daughter 
remains to the present day one of the most vivid traditions 
of literature, remarkably proves how much there was in Cicero 
to engage the interest of mankind. Caesar alone excepted, 
no ancient Roman has been so widely, so continuously, and 
so intensely alive since his death, as has been Marcus Tullius 
Cicero. Here is a specimen extract from the letter of Sul- 
picius : 

A reflection which was such as to afford me no light consolation I 
cannot but mention to you, in the hope that it may be allowed to con- 
tribute equally toward mitigating your grief. As I was returning from 
Asia, when sailing from ^E-gi'na in the direction of Meg'a-ra, I began 
to look around me at the various places by which I was surrounded. 
Behind me was ^Egina, in front, Megara ; on the right, the Pirgeus, 
on the left, Corinth : all of these towns, that in former days were so 
magnificent, are now lying- prostrate and in ruins before one's eyes. 
'Alas ! ' I began to reflect to myself, ' we poor feeble mortals, who can 
claim but a short life in comparison, complain as though a wrong was 
done us if one of our number dies in the course of nature, or has fallen 
on the field of battle ; and here in one spot are lying stretched out before 
me the corpses of so many cities ! Servius, why do you not control 
yourself, and remember that that is man's life into which you have been 
born? ' Believe me, I found myself in no small degree strengthened by 
these reflections. Let me advise you, if you agree with me, to put the 
same prospect before your ej^es too. How lately at one and the same 
time have many of our most illustrious men fallen ! how grave an en- 
croachment has been made on the rights of the sovereign people of 
Rome ! every country in the world has been convulsed : if the frail life 
of a helpless woman has gone too, who being born to our common lot 
must have died in a few short years, even if the time had not come for 
her now, are you thus utterly stricken down ? 

Sulpicius exerted himself to write mourning Cicero a long 
and thoughtful letter; but what our readers have seen is a 
fair specimen of the best comfort that this earnestly sympa- 



252 College Latin Course in English. 



thizing pagan friend could find to offer. Was not that a night 
of darkness and has not the sun arisen since ? 

(Two stanzas in the Childe Harold of Byron, iv : 44, 45, 
alluding to the foregoing descriptive and meditative strain 
from the letter of Sulpicius to Cicero, might here, for the 
sake of the comparison suggested, be read with interest.) 

Mr. William Melmoth executed a free and flowing transla- 
tion of a large number of Cicero's letters. He did his work 
well, but he did it in a literary style, also in a style of schol- 
arship, now somewhat out of fashion. For this reason, and 
for the reason in addition that Mr. Jeans is less paraphrastic 
than Melmoth, we have preferred the more recent translation. 
We have done so, however, with some lingering doubt 
whether the rhythm of Melmoth does not, more than compen- 
sating for the less scrupulous scholarship, make his version 
after all a better reflex of the original, than is the version of 
Mr. Jeans, with its defective feeling for balance and harmony 
of construction. 

Let Mr. Melmoth supply the translation of Cicero's 
answer to the foregoing tender of sympathy and consola- 
tion from Sulpicius : 

I join with you, my dear Sulpicius, in wishing that you had been in 
Rome when this most severe calamity befell me. I am sensible of the 
advantage I should have received from your presence, and I ha.d almost 
said your equal participation of my grief, by having found myself some- 
what more composed after I had read your letter. It furnished me, 
indeed, with arguments extremely proper to soothe the anguish of afflic- 
tion, and evidently flowed from a heart that sympathized with the sor- 
rows it endeavored to assuage. But although I could not enjoy the ben- 
efit of your own good offices in person, I had the advantage, however, of 
your son's, who gave me proof, by every tender assistance that could be 
contributed upon so melancholy an occasion, how much he imagined 
that he was acting agreeably to your sentiments when he thus discovered 
the affection of his own. More pleasing instances of his friendship I 
have frequently received, but never any that were more obliging. As to 
those for which I am indebted to yourself, it is not only the force of 
your reasonings, and the very considerable share you take in my afflic- 



Cicero. 253 

tions, that have contributed to compose my mind ; it is the deference, 
likewise, which I always pay to the authority of your sentiments. For, 
knowing, as I perfectly do, the superior wisdom with which you are en- 
lightened, I should be ashamed not to support my distresses in the man- 
ner you think I ought : I will acknowledge, nevertheless, that they 
sometimes almost entirely overcome me ; and I am scarce able to resist 
the force of my grief when I reflect, that I am destitute of those consola- 
tions which attended others, whose examples I propose to my imitation. 
Thus Quintus Maximus lost a son of consular rank, and distinguished by 
many brave and illustrious actions ; Lucius Paulus was deprived of two 
sons in the space of a single week ; and your relation Gallus, together 
with Marcus Cato, had both of them the unhappiness to survive their 
respective sons, who were endowed with the highest abilities and virtues. 
Yet these unfortunate parents lived in times when the honors they de- 
rived from the republic might, in some measure, alleviate the weight of 
their domestic misfortunes. But as for myself, after having been stripped 
of those dignities you mention, and which I had acquired by the most 
laborious exertion of my abilities, I had one only consolation remaining, 
— and of that I am now bereaved ! I could no longer divert the disquie- 
tude of my thoughts, by employing myself in the causes of my friends or 
the business of the State ; for I could no longer, with any satisfaction, 
appear either in the forum or the Senate. In short, I justly considered 
myself as cut off from the benefit of all those alleviating occupations in 
which fortune and industry had qualified me to engage. But I con- 
sidered, too, that this was a deprivation which I suffered in common 
with yourself and some others ; and, whilst I was endeavoring to recon- 
cile my mind to a patient endurance of those ills, there was one to whose 
tender offices I could have recourse, and in the sweetness of whose con- 
versation I could discharge all the cares and anxiety of my heart. But 
this last fatal stab to my peace has torn open those wounds which 
seemed in some measure to have been tolerably healed : for I can now 
no longer lose my private sorrows in the prosperity of the commonwealth, 
as I was wont to dispel the uneasiness I suffered upon the public account, 
in the happiness I received at home. Accordingly, I have equally 
banished myself from my house and from the public, — as finding no re- 
lief in either from the calamities I lament in both. It is this, therefore, 
that heightens my desire of seeing you here ; as nothing can afford me 
a more effectual consolation than the renewal of our friendly intercourse; 
a happiness which I hope, and am informed indeed, that I shall shortly 
enjoy. Among the many reasons I have for impatiently "wishing your 
arrival, one is, that we may previously concert together our scheme of 



254 College Latin Course in English. 

conduct in the present conjuncture, — which, however, must now be en- 
tirely accommodated to another's will. This person [Caesar], it is 
true, is a man of great abilities and generosity, and one, if I mistake 
not, who is by no means my enemy, — as I am sure he is extremely your 
friend. Nevertheless, it requires much consideration, I do not say in 
what manner we shall act with respect to public affairs, but by what 
methods we may best obtain his permission to retire from them. 
Farewell. 

We go from Cicero, the letter-writer, to Cicero, the eclectic 
philosopher. One letter however there is, not yet shown to our 
readers, that will form for us here a peculiarly happy step of 
transition. This is a communication of remarkable character 
addressed by Marcus Tullius, to his brother Quintus, Cicero. 
It is partly a letter of brotherly affection, and partly a state 
paper. The political ethics which it recommends will never 
be wholly obsolete. Quintus was governor of a very rich 
province, and, though his loyal and loving brother says 
nothing of the sort, we are almost obliged to suppose that 
Quintus was yielding somewhat, through greed, to the temp- 
tations of his place and his opportunity. Tully exhorts his 
brother — as Paul sometimes exhorted the churches — by as- 
suming that, in the case under treatment, the noble things 
which he counseled were already in practice. We possess a 
curious evidence — unimpeachable, because proceeding from 
Cicero's own pen — of the spirit in which thus this all- 
accomplished Italian at times deliberately chose to exert 
influence on others. In some cases he was, we fear, more 
careful to be crafty than he was to be truthful. To Atticus, 
Cicero, writing of a person from whom he desired a favor, 
says : " I should be better pleased to know that you had 
written to tell him that he is doing all I could wish — not that 
he really is doing so, but to gel him to do it." Finesse, certainly 
— but is not such finesse rather amiable ? 

Understood in the interpretative light reflected from the 
foregoing disclosure of the author's motive and method in 
dealing with men, Cicero's oration for Marcus Marcellus, 



Cicero. 255 

with its lavish praises of Caesar, exhibits the speaker, as 
was hinted in a former volume, intent less to describe flat- 
teringly what the great dictator really was, than to set allur- 
ingly before him the ideal of what he ought to be. 

The letter to Quintus which we are about to present, we 
do not find in Mr. Jeans's selection. We use Mr. Collins's 
translation, following him also, without particular notice to 
the reader, in the condensation which he makes : 

You will find little trouble in holding your subordinates in check, if 
you can but keep a check upon yourself. So long as you resist gain, 
and pleasure, and all other temptations, as I am sure you do, I cannot 
fancy there will be any danger of your not being able to check a dishonest 
merchant or an extortionate collector. For even the Greeks, when they 
see you living thus, will look upon you as some hero from their old an- 
nals, or some supernatural being from heaven, come down into their 
province. 

I write thus, not to urge you so to act, but that you may congratulate 
yourself upon having so acted, now and heretofore. For it is a glori- 
ous thing for a man to have held a government for three years in Asia, 
in such sort that neither statue, nor painting, nor work of art of any 
kind, nor any temptations of wealth or beauty (in all which temptations 
your province abounds) could draw you from the strictest integrity and 
self-control: that your official progress si ould have been no cause of 
dread to the inhabitants, that none should be impoverished by your re- 
quisitions, none terrified at the news of your approach ; — but that you 
should have brought with you, wherever you came, the most hearty 
rejoicings, public and private, inasmuch as every town saw in you a pro- 
tector and not a tyrant — every family received you as a guest, not as 
a plunderer. 

But in these points, as experience has by this time taught you, it is 
not enough for you to have these virtues yourself, but you must look to 
it carefully, that in this guardianship of the province not you alone, but 
every officer under you, discharges his duty to our subjects, to our fellow- 
citizens, and to the State. ... If any of your subordinates seem grasp- 
ing for his own interest, you may venture to bear with him so long as he 
merely neglects the rules by which he ought to be personally bound ; 
never so far as to allow him to abuse for his own gain the power with 
which you have intrusted him to maintain the dignity of his office. For 
1 do not think it well, especially since the customs of official life incline 



256 College Latin Course in English. 

so much of late to laxity and corrupt influence, that you should scruti- 
nize too closely every abuse, or criticise too strictly every one of your 
officers, but rather place trust in each in proportion as you feel confi- 
dence in his integrity. 

For those whom the State has assigned you as companions and assist- 
ants in public business, you are answerable only within the limits I have 
just laid down ; but for those whom you have chosen to associate with 
yourself as members of your private establishment and personal suite, you 
will be held responsible not only for all they do, but for all they say. 

Your ears should be supposed to hear only what you publicly listen to, 
not to be open to every secret and false whisper for the sake of private 
gain. Your official seal should be not as a mere common tool, but as 
though it were yourself; not the instrument of other men's wills, but the 
evidence of your own. Your officers should be the agents of your clem- 
ency, not of their own caprice ; and the rods and axes which they bear 
should be the emblems of your dignity, not merely of your power. In 
short, the whole province should feel that the persons, the families, the 
reputation, and the fortunes of all over whom you rule, are held by you 
very precious. Let it be well understood that you will hold that man as 
much your enemy who gives a bribe, if it comes to your knowledge, as 
the man who receives it. But no one Mall offer bribes, if this be once 
made clear, that those who pretend to have influence of this kind with 
you have no power, after all, to gain any favor for others at your hands. 

Let such, then, be the foundations of your dignity : first, integrity 
and self-control on your own part ; a becoming behavior on the part of 
all about you ; a very careful circumspect selection of your intimates, 
whether Greeks or provincials; a grave and firm discipline main- 
tained throughout your household. For if such conduct befits us in our 
private and every-day relations, it becomes well-nigh godlike in a gov- 
ernment of such extent, in a state of morals so depraved, and in a 
province which presents so many temptations. Such a line of conduct 
and such rules will alone enable you to uphold that severity in your de- 
cisions and decrees which you have employed in some cases, and by 
which we have incurred (and I cannot regret it) the jealousy of certain 
interested parties. . . . You may safely use the utmost strictness in the 
administration of justice, so long as it is not capricious or partial, but 
maintained at the same level for all. Yet it will be of little use thatyour 
own decisions be just and carefully weighed, unless the same course be 
pursued by all to whom you delegate any portion of your judicial au- 
thority. Such firmness and dignity must be employed as may not only 
be above partiality, but above the suspicion of it. To this must be 



Cicero. 257 

added readiness to give audience, calmness in deciding, care in weighing 
the merits of the case and in satisfying the claims of the parties. 

If such moderation [as that recommended by Cicero] be popular at 
Rome, where there is so much self-assertion, such unbridled freedom, 
so much license allowed to all men; — where there are so many courts of 
appeal open, so many means of help, where the people have so much 
power and the Senate so much authority ; how grateful beyond measure 
will moderation be in the governor of Asia, a province where all that 
vast number of our fellow-citizens and subjects, all those numerous 
States and cities, hang upon one man's nod ! where there is no appeal 
to the tribune, no remedy at law, no Senate, no popular assembly ! 
Wherefore it should be the aim of a great man, and one noble by nature 
and trained by education and liberal studies, so to behave himself in the 
exercise of that absolute power, as that they over whom he presides 
should never have cause to wish for any authority other than his. 

Readers, after the perusal of that letter from Marcus to 
Quintus, will naturally, in a treatise on ethics from the same 
hand, expect a very high tone of morality. In this expecta- 
tion, they will not be disappointed when they study Cicero's 
De Officiis. Disappointed, however, they will be, if they 
carry their expectation further, and look to find in this 
ethical treatise any such firmness and consistency of moral 
standard and tone, as they have been accustomed to recog- 
nize in the New Testament. The De Officiis is almost as 
remarkable for its points of moral failure, as it is for its points 
of moral achievement. You wonder that one who came so 
near the ideal of perfection in character and conduct, should 
nevertheless at last have missed that ideal. The remarkable- 
ness of Cicero's shortcoming may thus be said to lie not in 
the fact that it was so great, but in the fact that it was so 
small. A comparative estimate of Cicero's De Officiis and 
of his philosophical writings in general, presented by Luther, 
will be read with interest. Out of this great man's teeming 
" table-talk " so-called, happily in such large measure pre- 
served to us, we take the following extract : 

" Cicero is greatly superior to Aristotle in philosophy and 
in teaching. The Officia of Cicero are greatly superior to 



258 College Latin Course in English. 

the Ethica of Aristotle; and although Cicero was involved 
in the cares of government and had much on his shoulders, 
he greatly excels Aristotle, who was a lazy ass, and cared for 
nothing but money and possessions, and comfortable, easy 
days. Cicero handled the greatest and best questions in his 
philosophy, such as: Is there a God ? What is God? Does 
he give heed to the actions of men? Is the soul immortal? 
etc. Aristotle is a good and skillful dialectician, who has 
observed the right and orderly method in teaching, but the 
kernel of matters he has not touched. Let those who wish 
to see a true philosophy read Cicero. Cicero was a wise and 
industrious man, and he suffered much and accomplished 
much. I hope that our Lord God will be generous to him 
and to the like of him. Of this we are not entitled to speak 
with certainty. Although the revealed word must abide : 
1 He who believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved ' (Mark 
xvi, 16), yet it is possible that God may dispense with it in 
the case of the heathen. There will be a new heaven and a 
new earth, much larger than the present ; and he can give 
to every one according to his good pleasure." 

It is pathetic to feel, as we are compelled to do, how little 
worthy to have elicited from his father a series of letters like 
those which make up the De Officiis, was that son Marcus 
to whom Cicero addressed this great work of his pen. Mar- 
cus seems to have been a young fellow on whom whatever 
advantages wealth and position and opportunity and fatherly 
affection could procure for their object, were lavished to a 
great extent in vain. He perhaps rallied permanently from 
the shameful dissipation into which he lapsed while a stu- 
dent at Athens; but, though he survived his father, he in no 
way continued his father's fame. 

Cicero was an eminently practical man, a man of affairs, 
a man of real life. The practical interest accordingly with 
him always dominated the speculative. The De Officiis is by 
no means conceived as an exhaustive philosophical treatise 



Cicero. 259 

on the subject of ethics. It is rather a manual of maxims, 
reasoned and elucidated maxims, adapted to guide the con- 
duct of a young man seeking to be a good citizen in the Ro- 
man state and a candidate there for political preferment. 

The work is divided into three books. The first book treats 
the Right, the second, the Expedient, the third, the Relation 
between the Right and the Expedient. This is a seemingly 
exhaustive, an ideal, division of the subject; but the actual 
analysis of the matter introduced is far from being severe. 
Topics are entertained that hardly belong at all in the dis- 
cussion, and topics that certainly do not belong in the places 
in which they are found. For example, Cicero enlarges, 
with much detail of suggestion, and with historical instance, 
on the kind of house a man should live in. This — where, 
would you guess? Well, not under the head of the Expe- 
dient — but under the head of the Right. Of course, a man's 
choice of habitation might be made a serious ethical point. 
But the point is not ethical at all, as Cicero treats it — that is, 
not ethical in the sense in which we moderns use the w r ord 
ethical. Cicero, however, has made "becomingness " a cri- 
terion of duty. And it is under this idea of " becoming- 
ness," that the question of a proper house to live in is ad- 
mitted to place in the discussion of what is " right." You 
expand and, in so far, you degrade your conception of ethics, 
when you include the matter of habitation, considered as 
fitting or not to your own dignity, within the number of 
topics proper to be embraced in ethical discussion. 

The main interest of the De Officiis centers in the third 
book, the book in which the author treats of apparent con- 
flicts between the Expedient and the Right. Let us go to 
that book ; but let us, while going, cull here and there an in- 
teresting thing on the way. 

"The first demand of justice," says Cicero, "is that no 
one do harm to another, unless provoked by injury." We itali- 
cize the exceptive clause — the clause will occur a second time 



260 College Latin Course in English. 



toward the end of the treatise — as constituting a point of 
contrast between the De Officiis and the New Testament. 

Julius Caesar (dead at the date of this composition) is 
more than once made by Cicero to do duty as an example 
by way of warning. Generosity, as well as justice, is, ac- 
cording to Cicero, a demand of morality. But the lavish 
munificence of Caesar was not to be accounted generosity. 
Caesar had taken wrongfully what he bestowed magnificently; 
and "nothing," insists Cicero, "is generous that is not at 
the same time just." 

Cicero himself was rich, but hardly rich with such a spirit 
as to be condemned by his own sentiment, expressed in the 
following words : 

Nothing shows so narrow and small a mind as the love of riches ; 
nothing is more honorable and magnificent than to despise money, if 
you have it not — if you have it, to expend it for purposes of beneficence 
and generosity. 

When, however, Cicero immediately went on, " The greed of 
fame also must be shunned" — perhaps he was, whether he 
knew it or not, fairly hit by a boomerang return upon himself 
of his own weapon. 

The great Fabius Cunctator of Livy supplies to our author 
his example of a patriot preferring the people's welfare to 
his own present praise from the people. The allusion be- 
comes to Cicero an occasion of saving for us from oblivion a 
few lines of an early poet — Ennius, hitherto known only by 
name in these books : 

One man by slow delays restored our fortunes, 
Preferring not the people's praise to safety, 
And thus his after-glory shines the more. 

One is rather confounded to find Cicero — after having, on 
the subject of jests, laid down the distinction between the 
coarse and the refined sorts — naming together, Plautus, the 



Cicero. 261 

Old Comedy of Athens (Aristophanes), and Plato, as afford- 
ing examples of the refined. 

" One person," Cicero teaches, " ought, while another 
person, under the same circumstances, ought not, to com- 
mit suicide." Elsewhere in his writings, he makes suicide 
wrong. 

" Becomingness " is, in Cicero's treatment, a very elastic 
category in ethics. Under it, he finds opportunity to give 
his son Marcus all sorts of excellent advice. " It is in bad 
taste to talk about one's self," he says; as Marcus, if he was 
at all an observing youth, had no doubt again and again had 
occasion to reflect, when listening to his distinguished fa- 
ther's self-exploiting discourse, both at home and abroad. 

Is not this that follows almost like the apostle Paul giving 
instruction to the Corinthian Christians about the use of the 
various supernatural " gifts " ? 

It is better to speak fluently, if wisely, than to think, no matter with 
what acuteness of comprehension, if the power of expression be wanting ; 
for thought begins and ends in itself, while fluent speech extends its 
benefit to those with whom we are united in fellowship. 

Cicero, as from the foregoing might be inferred, insists 
strongly on "altruism" — in the form of making self-indul- 
gence in study and culture severely subordinate to activities 
that may tend to the good of one's fellow-creatures. 

The second book of the De Ofnciis, Cicero opens with a 
statement of his motive and design in discussing philosophy. 
We give an interesting extract : 

Although, indeed, my books have roused not a few to the desire not 
only of reading, but of writing, still I sometimes fear that the mere name 
of philosophy may be offensive to certain worthy men, and that they 
may marvel that I spend so much labor and time upon it. In truth, so 
long as the State was administered by men of its own choice, I bestowed 
upon it all my care and thought. But when all things were held under 
the absolute sway of one man, and there was no longer room for advice 
or influence, while at the same time I had lost my associates in the 



262 College Latin Course in English. 

guardianship of the State, men of the highest eminence, I did not aban- 
don myself to melancholy, which would have consumed me had I not 
resisted it, nor yet, on the other hand, to sensual pleasures unworthy of 
a philosopher. And oh that the State had continued in the condition in 
which it recommenced its life [when Caesar fell], and had not fallen into 
the hands of men desirous not so much of reforming as of revolution- 
izing its constitution! In that case, in the first place, as I used to do 
when the State stood on a firm basis, I should expend more labor in 
pleading than in writing ; and in the next place, I should commit to 
writing not the subjects now in hand, but my arguments before the 
courts, as I have often done. But when the State, on which all my 
care, thought, labor, used to be expended, had utterly ceased to be, my 
forensic and senatorial literature was of course silenced. Yet since my 
mind could not be unemployed, having been conversant with these stud- 
ies from my early days, I thought that my chagrin could be most honor- 
ably laid aside if I betook myself to philosophy, to which I devoted a 
large part of my youth as a learner, while after I began to hold impor- 
tant offices and gave myself wholly to the service of the State, philosophy 
had as much of my time as was not taken up by the claims of my friends 
and the public. Yet this time was all consumed in reading ; I had no 
leisure for writing. 

I seem, then, in the severest calamities to have attained at least this 
good fortune, that I am able to commit to writing subjects not suffi- 
ciently familiar to my fellow-countrymen, and yet pre-eminently worthy 
of their cognizance. For what, in the name of the gous, is more desir- 
able than wisdom ? What more to be prized? What better? What 
more worthy of man ? It is the seekers of this, then, who are called 
philosophers ; nor is philosophy, if you undertake to translate it, any- 
thing else than the love of wisdom. 

That is a wholesome inculcation, in which Cicero, discuss- 
ing the Expedient, teaches his son that, even for his own sake, 
he ought to seek to be loved. He draws warning example 
again, anonymously this time, from Caesar — and Ennius is 
quoted once more : 

But of all things nothing tends so much to the guarding and keeping 
of resources as to be the object of affection ; nor is any thing more 
foreign to that end than to be the object of fear. Ennius says most 
fittingly: 

" Hate follows fear ; and plotted ruin, hate." 



Cicero. 263 



It has been lately demonstrated, if it was before unknown, that no re- 
sources can resist the hatred of a numerous body. It is not merely the 
destruction of this tyrant, . . . that shows how far the hatred of men 
may prove fatal ; but similar deaths of other tyrants, hardly one of whom 
has escaped a like fate, teach this lesson. 

Cicero enjoins the duty of beneficence, in the personal 
performance of kind offices, and in the bestowment of 
money. As between the two, he gives the preference to the 
former : 

The latter is more easy, especially for one who is rich ; but the former 
is more noble, more magnificent, and more worthy of a strong and emi- 
nent man. 

Cicero too makes his acknowledgment of debt to the 
Greek. He speaks here of Greek Pa-nse'tius, " whom," says 
he, " in my present treatise, I have followed, not translated." 

If, in what we now proceed to show, there seems some 
taint of indulgence granted to mercenary calculation of gain, 
let it be remembered that Cicero at this moment was pro- 
fessedly dealing with the idea, not of the Right, but of the 
Expedient. Again a line of Ennius is rescued from oblivion : 

We ought to be by no means niggardly, but to be judicious and care- 
ful in selecting suitable subjects for our bounty. For Ennius says very 
fittingly : 

" Good done amiss I count as evil done." 

But what is given to a good and grateful man yields us in return a 
revenue both from him and from others. For when one does not give 
at hap-hazard, generosity confers the highest pleasure, and most per- 
sons bestow upon it the greater applause, because the kindheartedness 
of any one who holds a conspicuous station is the common refuge for all. 
Care must be taken, therefore, that we confer on as many as possible 
benefits of such a nature that their memory may be transmitted to chil- 
dren and posterity, so that they too cannot be ungrateful. 

Cicero constantly enlivens and enlightens his ethical page 
with instance drawn by the writer from great resources of 
knowledge in possession, Here is an example of this method 



264 College Latin Course i?i English. 

of his. He is pointing out how on the whole it is for you 
yourself more profitable to exercise kindness toward really 
good men than toward men simply well placed in life : 

I think a kindness better invested with good men than with men of 
fortune. In fine, we should endeavor to meet the claims of those of 
every class ; but if it come to a competition between rival claimants for 
our service, Themistocles may be well quoted as an authority, who, when 
asked whether he would marry his daughter to a good poor man, or to a 
rich man of less respectable character, replied, " I, indeed, prefer the 
man who lacks money to the money that lacks a man." 

Cicero holds good sound doctrine on financial questions. 
Repudiation of debt, under whatever form proposed, and 
with whatever pretext, excites his abhorrence. He has his 
thrust at Julius Coesar again : 

Nothing holds the State more firmly together than good faith, which 
cannot possibly exist unless the payment of debts is obligatory. ... He, 
indeed, of late conqueror, but at that time conquered [that is, when 
Catiline's conspiracy was suppressed — Cicero 'assumes Caesar, deeply in 
debt at the moment, to have taken part in the plot], carried out what he 
had then planned after he had ceased to have any personal interest in it. 
So great was his appetite for evil-doing, that the very doing of evil gave 
him delight, even when there was no special reason for it. From this 
kind of generosity, then, — the giving to some what is taken from others, — 
those who mean to be guardians of the State will refrain, and will espe- 
cially bestow their efforts, that through the equity of the laws and of 
their administration every man may have his own property made secure, 
and that neither the poorer may be defrauded on account of their lowly 
condition, nor any odium may stand in the way of the rich in holding or 
recovering what belongs to them. 

The third book of the De Officiis commences with another 
interesting allusion on Cicero's part to himself, illuminated 
with one of those historic anecdotes which, throughout this 
writer's philosophical works, add such charm to his literary 

style: 

My son Marcus : — Cato, who was nearly of the same age with Publius 
Scipio, the first of the family that bore the name of Africanus, repre- 



Cicero. 



265 



sents him as in the habit of saying that he was never less at leisure than 
when he was at leisure, or less alone than when he was alone, — a truly 
magnificent utterance and worthy of a great and wise man, — indicating 
that in leisure he was wont to think of business and in solitude to com- 
mune with himself, so that he was never idle, and had no need between- 
while of another person's con- 
versation. Thus the two things, 
leisure and solitude, which with 
others occasion languor, quick- 
ened his energies. I could wish 
that I were able to say the 
same ; but if I cannot by imi- 
tation attain such transcendent 
excellence of temperament, I 
at any rate in my inclination 
make as near an approach to 
it as 1 can ; for, debarred from 
political and forensic employ- 
ments by sacrilegious arms and 
violence, I am abandoning my- 
self to leisure, and therefore, 
leaving the city and wandering 
from one place in the country 
to another, I am often alone. 
But neither is this leisure of 
mine to be compared with the 
leisure of Africanus, nor this 
solitude with his. He, indeed, 
reposing from the most honor- 
able public trusts, upon certain 
occasions snatched leisure for himself, and from the company and con- 
course of men between while betook himself to solitude as to a harbor. 
But my leisure proceeds from lack of employment, not fromdesire forrepose. 
... I who have not such strength of mind that I can abstract myself 
from the weariness of solitude by silent meditation, am directing all my 
study and care to this labor of writing, and thus in the short time that 
has elapsed since the overthrow of the State, I have written more than in 
many years while it stood. 




SCIPIO AFRICANUS. 



The third book, as has been said, is occupied with the re- 
lation of the Right to the Expedient. Cicero, with repeti- 
12 



266 College Latin Course in English. 

tion and with emphasis, insists that there is never any conflict 
between these two — that always what is right is expedient, 
and that never is any thing expedient which is not right. 
But he draws many distinctions and admits many qualifica- 
tions. A thing generally wrong may, under certain circum- 
stances, be right. He instances Brutus's act in stabbing 
Caesar, as an illustration in point : 

What greater crime can there be than to kill not only a man, but an 
intimate friend? Has one, then, involved himself in guilt by killing a 
tyrant, however intimate with him ? This is not the opinion of the Ro- 
man people, who of all deeds worthy of renown regard this as the most 
noble. Has expediency, then, got the advantage over the right? Nay, 
but expediency has followed in the direction of the right. 

It is the Stoic philosophy that Cicero mainly follows in the 
De Officiis, but, as disciple also of Plato, he claims much 
latitude of view and discussion. Here is a noble passage 
that will recall Paul's ethics, and even Paul's rhetoric : 

For a man to take anything wrongfully from another, and to increase his 
own means of comfort by his fellow-man's discomfort, is more contrary to 
nature than death, than poverty, than pain, than anything else that can 
happen to one's body or his external condition. In the first place, it 
destroys human intercourse and society ; for if we are so disposed that 
every one for his own gain is ready to rob or outrage another, that 
fellowship of the human race which is in the closest accordance with 
nature must of necessity be broken in sunder. As if each member 
of the body were so affected as to suppose itself capable of getting 
strength by appropriating the strength of the adjacent member, the 
whole body must needs be enfeebled and destroyed, so if each of us 
seizes for himself the goods of others, and takes what he can from every 
one for his own emolument, the society and intercourse of men must 
necessarily be subverted. 

To the same purport again : 

This, then, above all, ought to be regarded by every one as an estab- 
lished principle, that the interest of each individual and that of the en- 
tire body of citizens are identical, which interest if any one appropriate 
to himself alone, he does it to the sundering of all human intercourse. 



Cicero. 267 

. . . Those, too, who say that account is to be taken of citizens, but not 
of foreigners, destroy the common sodality of the human race, which 
abrogated, beneficence, liberality, kindness, justice, are removed from 
their very foundations. 

The following fine anecdote illustrates Cicero's open- 
minded hospitality toward what he found good in other 
nations than the Roman : 

The-mis'to-cles, after the victory in the Persian war, said in a popular 
assembly, that he had a plan conducive to the public good, but that it 
was not desirable that it should be generally known. He asked that 
the people should name some one with whom he might confer. Aris- 
ti'des was named. Themistocles said to him that the fleet of the Lace- 
daemonians, which was drawn ashore at Gy-the'um, could be burned clan- 
destinely, and if that were done, the power of the Lacedaemonians would 
be inevitably broken. Aristides, having heard this, returned to the as- 
sembly amidst the anxious expectation of all, and said that the measure 
proposed by Themistocles was very advantageous, but utterly devoid of 
right. Thereupon the Athenians concluded that what was not right 
was not expedient, and they repudiated the entire plan which they had 
not heard, on the authority of Aristides. 

Several cases narrated or supposed by Cicero, and then 
considered by him on the one side and on the other — cases 
of apparent conflict between the Right and the Expedient — 
give rise to discusssion at his hands which strikingly shows 
to what height of moral standard the conscience of man, 
unassisted by Divine revelation, could attain. The now so 
much vaunted ethics of Buddhism suffer cruelly in contrast 
with Cicero's De Officiis. Here is a case that in its essence 
is as much modern as it is ancient : 

There often occur cases of such a nature that expediency seems in 
conflict with the right, so that it must be ascertained by close examina- 
tion whether it is really thus in conflict, or whether it can be brought into 
harmony with the right. Of this class are questions like the following: 
If, for example, a good man has brought from Alexandria to Rhodes a 
large cargo of corn, when there is a great scarcity and dearth at Rhodes 
and corn is at the highest price, — in case this man knows that a con- 



268 College Latin Course in English. 

sidei-able number of merchants have set sail from Alexandria, and on his 
passage he has seen ships laden with corn bound for Rhodes, shall he 
give this information to the Rhodians, or shall he keep silence and sell 
his cargo for the most that it will bring ? We are imagining the case of 
a wise and good man. We want to know about the thought and feeling 
of such a man as would not leave the Rhodians uninformed if he thinks 
it wrong, but who doubts whether it is wrong or not. In cases of this 
kind Diogenes of Babylon, an eminent Stoic of high authority, is wont 
to express one opinion, Antipater his pupil, a man of superior acuteness, 
another. According to Antipater, all things ought to be laid open, so that 
the buyer may be left in ignorance of nothing at all that the seller knows. 
According to Diogenes, the seller is bound to disclose defects in his 
goods, so far as the law of the land requires, to transact the rest of the 
business without fraud, and then, since he is the seller, to sell for as 
much as he can get. " I have brought my cargo ; I have offered it for 
sale ; I am selling my corn for no more than others ask, perhaps even 
for less than they would ask, since my arrival has increased the supply. 
Whom do I wrong? " On the other side comes the reasoning of Antip- 
ater : "What say you? While you ought to consult the welfare of 
mankind and to render service to human society, and by the very con- 
dition of your being have such innate natural principles which you are 
bound to obey and follow, that the common good should be your good, 
and reciprocally yours the common good, will you conceal from men 
what comfort and plenty are nigh at hand for them ? " Diogenes, per- 
haps, will reply as follows : "It is one thing to conceal, another not to 
tell. Nor am I now concealing any thing from you, by not telling you 
what is the nature of the gods, or what is the supreme good, — things 
which it would profit you much more to know than to know the cheap- 
ness of wheat. But am I under the necessity of telling you all that it 
would do you good to hear? " " Yes, indeed, you are under that neces- 
sity, if you bear it in mind that nature establishes a community of inter- 
est among men." " I do bear this in mind. But is this community of in- 
terest such that one can have nothing of his own? If it be so, every 
thing ought, indeed, to be given, not sold." 

You see that in this whole discussion it is not said, "Although this 
be wrong, yet, because it is expedient I will do it ; " but that it is ex- 
pedient without being morally wrong, and, on the other side, that be- 
cause it is wrong it ought not to be done. 

Cicero has only tantalized us thus far, with things almost 
equally well said on this side and on that, of the ethical 



Cice?'o. 269 

question involved. He now, not as yet resolving our doubt, 
gives us another hypothetical case: 

A good man sells a house on account of some defects, of which he 
himself is aware and others ignorant. Perhaps it is unhealthy, and is 
supposed to be healthy, — it is not generally known that snakes make 
their appearance in all the bedrooms, — it is built of bad materials, and 
is in a ruinous condition ; but nobody knows this except the owner. I 
ask, if the seller should have failed to tell these things to the buyer, 
and should thus have sold his house for a higher price than he could 
reasonably have expected, whether he would have acted unjustly or' 
unfairly? "Yes, he would," says Anlipater ; "for what is meant by 
not putting into the right way one who has lost his way (which at 
Athens exposed a man to public execration), if it does not include the 
case in which a buyer is permitted to rush blindly on, and through his 
mistake to fall into a heavy loss by fraudulent means ? It is even worse 
than not showing the right way ; it is knowingly leading another into 
the wrong way." Diogenes, on the other hand, says: "Did he who did 
not even advise you to buy, force you to buy ? He advertised for sale 
what he did not like ; you bought what you did like. Certainly, if those 
who advertise a good and well-built house are not regarded as swindlers, 
even though it is neither good nor properly built, much less should those 
be so regarded who have said nothing in praise of their house. For in a 
case in which the buyer can exercise his own judgment, what fraud can 
there be on the part of the seller? And if all that is said is not to be 
guaranteed, do you think that what is not said ought to be guaranteed ? 
What could be more foolish than for the seller to tell the defects of the 
article that he is selling? Nay, what so absurd as for an auctioneer, by 
the owner's direction, to proclaim, ' I am selling an unhealthy house? ' " 
Thus, then, in certain doubtful cases the right is defended on the one 
side ; on the other, expediency is urged on the ground that it is not only 
right to do what seems expedient, but even wrong not to do it. This is 
the discrepancy which seems often to exist between the expedient and 
the right. 

Our suspense at last is relieved. Tully says : 

But I must state my decision in these cases ; for I introduced them, 
not to raise the inquiry concerning them, but to give their solution. It 
seems to me, then, that neither that Rhodian corn-merchant nor this 
seller of the house ought to have practiced concealment with the buyers. 
In truth, reticence with regard to any matter whatever does not consti- 



270 College Latin Course in E?iglish. 

tute concealment ; but concealment consists in willingly hiding from 
others for your own advantage something that you know. Who does 
not see what sort of an act such concealment is, and what sort of a man 
he must be who practices it ? Certainly this is not the conduct of an 
open, frank, honest, good man, but rather of a wily, dark, crafty, deceit- 
ful, ill-meaning, cunning man, an old rogue, a swindler. Is it not 
inexpedient to become liable to these so numerous and to many more 
bad names ? 

The solution as stated by Cicero is not forcibly clear. 
His idea seems to be : ' Concealment, in a matter of buying 
and selling, is wrong; but what is concealment? Mere 
not telling is not to be, in all cases whatever, reckoned con- 
cealment. The condemnable concealment is practiced when 
what you know is, for your own advantage, purposely by you 
kept back from another, to his disadvantage.' Surely no mod- 
ern casuist, Chistian though he be, would go beyond that to 
teach a tenser doctrine of moral obligation. How many 
Christian business men are there in America whose record 
of transactions would escape unscathed under the application 
to them of Ciceronian ethics ? 

Cicero has an a fortiori argument to append. He appends it 
— perhaps for the sake of the illustrative instance to be given : 

But if those who keep silence deserve censure, what is to be thought 
of those who employ absolute falsehood ? Caius Canius, a Roman 
knight, a man not without wit and of respectable literary culture, having 
gone to Syracuse, for rest, as he used to say, not for business, wanted to 
buy a small estate, to which he could invite his friends, and where he 
could take his own pleasure without intruders. When his wish had be- 
come generally known, a certain Pythius, who was doing a banker's 
business at Syracuse, told him that he had a country-seat, not, indeed, 
for sale, but which Canius was at liberty to use as his own if he wished 
to do so; and at the same time he invited the man to supper at the 
country-seat for the next day. He having accepted the invitation, 
Pythius, who, as being a banker, was popular among all classes, called 
the fishermen together, asked them to fish the next day in front of his 
villa, and told them what he wanted them to do. Canius came to supper 
at the right time ; a magnificent entertainment was prepared by Pythius ; 



Cicero. 271 

a multitude of little boats were in full sight ; every fisherman brought 
what he had taken ; the fish were laid down at the feet of Pythias. 
Then Canius says, " Prithee, what does this mean ? So many fish here? 
So many boats?" And he answered, " What wonder? All the fish for 
the Syracuse market are here ; they come here to be in fresh water. 
The fishermen cannot dispense with this villa." Canius, inflamed with 
longing, begs Pythius to sell the place. He hesitates at first: To cut 
the story short, Canius over-persuades him. The greedy and rich man 
buys the villa for as high a price as Pythius chooses to ask, and buys the 
furniture too. He gives security ; he finishes the business. Canius 
the next day invites his friends. He comes early ; he sees not a thole~ 
pin. He asks his next neighbor whether it is a fisherman's holiday, as 
he sees none of them. "Not so far as I know," was the reply. "No 
fishermen are in the habit of fishing here. I therefore yesterday could 
not think what had occurred to bring them." Canius was enraged. 
But what was he to do? My colleague and friend, Aquillius, had not 
then published his forms of legal procedure in the case of criminal fraud, 
as to which when he was asked for a definition of criminal fraud, he re- 
plied, " When one thing is pretended, another done." This is perfectly 
clear, as might be expected from a man skilled in defining. Pythius, 
then, and all who do one thing while they pretend another, are treach- 
erous, wicked, villainous. Therefore nothing that they do can be ex- 
pedient, when defiled by so many vices. 

With one brief sentence more from this remarkable vol- 
ume, we end our representation of the De Officiis of Cicero. 
The sentence is one which sums up, in a single blended ex- 
pression, at once the strange loftiness and the strange limita- 
tion of Cicero's moral ideal : 

If one would only develop the idea of a good man wrapped up in his 
own mind, he would then at once tell himself that he is a good man 
who benefits all that he can, and does harm to no one unless pixwoked 
by injury. 

" Unless provoked by injury " ! The wings seemed strong 
enough to raise their possessor quite clear of the ground ; but, 
alas, there was a hopeless clog tied fast to the feet. How 
easily that untaught young Judsean to be born a generation 
later, will say : 



272 College Latin Course in English, 

" Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to 
them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use 
you and persecute you." 

The De Senectute (Concerning Old Age) of Cicero is an 
essay such almost as Addison, for example, might have issued 
in parts continued through several numbers of his Spectator. 
It is a charming meditation on a theme that Cicero's time of 
life when he wrote it inclined him and fitted him to make the 
subject of discourse. It was probably written not far from 
the date of the composition of the De Officiis. The literary 
form is that of a dialogue after the manner of Plato, in 
which Cato the Elder — an idealized and glorified man, as 
Cicero finely misrepresents the sturdy but boorish old censor 
of actual history — is the chief speaker. It is the gracious 
personality of the writer himself, rather than the repel- 
lent, not to say repulsive, personality of the historic char- 
acter represented, which diffuses that indescribable charm 
over the exquisite pages of the De Senectute. Cicero bal- 
ances the good and the ill of old age, with a serene and 
suave philosophy, which, while you read, makes you feel as 
if it would be a thing delightful to grow old. We take a 
single passage, only too brief, from the concluding part of 
the dialogue. This passage will be found to disclose some- 
thing of the spirit in which the transmitted influence of 
Socrates and Plato enabled Cicero, at least in his better, his 
more transfigured, moments, to contemplate the prospect of 
death. It forms a bland and beautiful contrast to the hid- 
eous squalor of the old man depicted in Juvenal's satirical 
portrait. Cato is speaking to his younger companions in 
conversation — sons they of illustrious sires. He alludes to a 
son of his own, deceased,— " my Cato," he calls him, — with 
pathetic reminiscence reminding one of Burke's uttered sor- 
row over his similar bereavement, and of Webster's over his. 
What we give brings the dialogue to its end : 



Cicero. 273 

I am transported with desire to see your fathers whom I revered and 
loved ; nor yet do I long to meet those only 'whom I have known, but 
also those of whom I have heard and read, and about whom I myself 
have written. Therefore one could not easily turn me back on my life- 
way, nor would 1 willingly, like Pelias, be plunged in the rejuvenating 
caldron. Indeed, were any god to grant that from my present age I 
might go back to boyhood, or become a crying child in the cradle, I 
should steadfastly refuse ; nor would 1 be willing, as from a finished 
race, to be summoned back from the goal to the starting-point. For 
what advantage is there in life ? Or rather, what is there of arduous 
toil that is wanting to it? But grant all that you may in its favor, it 
still certainly has its excess or its fit measure of duration. I am not, in- 
deed, inclined to speak ill of life, as many and even wise men have oft- 
en done, nor am I sony to have lived ; for I have so lived that I do not 
think that I was born to no purpose. Yet I depart from life, as from an 
inn, not as from a home ; for nature has given us here a lodging for 
a sojourn, not a place of habitation. O glorious day, when I shall go 
to that divine company and assembly of souls, and when I shall depart 
from this crowd and tumult ! I shall go, not only to the men of whom I 
have already spoken, but also to my Cato, than whom no better man was 
ever born, nor one who surpassed him in filial piety, whose funeral pile 
I lighted, — the office which he should have performed for me, — but 
whose soul, not leaving me, but looking back upon me, has certainly 
gone into those regions whither re saw that [ should come to him. This 
my calamity I seemed to bear bravely. Not that I endured it with an 
untroubled mind ; but I was consoled by the thought that there would 
be between us no long parting of the way and divided life. For these 
reasons, Scipio, as you have said that you and Laelius have observed 
with wonder, old age sits lightly upon me. Not only is it not burden- 
some ; it is even pleasant. But if I err in believing that the souls of 
men are immortal, I am glad thus to err, nor am I willing that this error in 
which I delight shall be wrested from me so long as I live ; while if in 
death, as some paltry philosophers think, I shall have no consciousness, 
the dead philosophers cannot ridicule this delusion of mine. But 
if we are not going to be immortal, it is yet desirable for man to 
cease living in his due time ; for nature has its measure, as of all other 
things, so of life. Old age is the closing act of life, as of a drama, and 
we ought in this to avoid utter weariness, especially if the act has been 
prolonged beyond its due length. I had these things to say about old 
age, which I earnestly hope that you may reach, so that you can 
verify by experience what you have heard from me. 
12* 



274 College Latin Course in English. 

We feel like performing an act of expiation. In a for- 
mer volume, we gave hard measure in judgment of the Ro- 
man character. We cannot revoke our sentence ; for our 
sentence, we think, was mainly just. But we should like to 
strengthen our recommendation to mercy. Cicero, both by 
what he himself was, and by noble things that he here and 
there reports of his countrymen, inclines us, willingly per- 
suaded, to relent from our extreme severity. They were a 
great race, not unworthy of their fame, — those ancient Ro- 
mans; and Alpine flowers of moral beauty bloomed amid the 
Alpine snow and ice of their austere pride, their matter-of- 
fact selfishness. 

As for Tully, his glory is secure. His own writings are his 
imperishable monument. Spoken against he may be, but he 
will continue to be read ; and as long as he is read, he will 
enjoy his triumph. For no one can read Cicero, and not 
feel, in the face of whatever faults discovered, irresistibly 
propitiated toward him. 

In our historic sketch of Rome, we called Caesar the sun 
of Roman history. With not less truth, we may now call 
Cicero the sun of Roman literature. 



VIII. 
PLINY. 



His letters are the chief thing that we have left of Pliny's 
productions. These letters possess great interest for moderns. 
They are indeed so interesting, that if Cicero's are more in- 
teresting, the reason, we are bound to say, lies chiefly in the 
fact that a greater man, a man who did greater things, wrote 
Cicero's letters. Intrinsically, the letters of Pliny are, in 
continuing charm for modern readers, no whit inferior to the 
letters of Cicero. 



Pliny. 275 

Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, as we have before said, 
was a younger contemporary and friend of the historian 
Tacitus. He was also a friend of the great emperor Trajan. 
Pliny the Elder, whose adopted son he was, was an eccentric, 
enormously hard-working, man of letters, addicted to Nat- 
ural History as a specialty. He perished — doubtful in what 
manner, whether by sudden disease, or by suffocation due to 
that convulsion of nature — in the great historic eruption of 
Vesuvius, whose phenomena he had been curiously observing. 

Pliny the Younger, our author, was well-born, well-bred, 
and wealthy. All the circumstances of his life seemed pro- 
pitious. He remained remarkably to the end an unspoiled 
favorite of fortune. His domestic experience was singularly 
pure and happy. He enjoyed many noble friendships. He 
achieved an active and successful career as advocate. He 
fulfilled important offices of state. He was at the same time 
a fascinated student, and a fascinating maker, of literature. 
He used his wealth to scatter bounty with a beneficent, as 
well as a munificent, hand. Altogether, a singularly engag- 
ing literary figure was Pliny. Scarcely inconsistent with this 
is it to add that Pliny, as provincial governor, put Christians 
to the rack. Such conduct on his part was of the age rather 
than of the man; while the humane, inquiring reluctance, 
the compelled benignity, as it were, with which he pursued 
this conduct, was certainly rather of the man than of the age. 

Pliny belonged, with Tacitus, and with Quintilian, to what, 
in contrast with the golden Augustan age, is called the silver 
age of Roman literature. It was a revival, but not a com- 
plete rehabilitation, of the literary spirit which the ripe Re- 
public had brought to its height, but which the tyranny of 
the Empire, under bad emperors, had insupportably sup- 
pressed. Trajan was, as it were, a second Augustus, better 
perhaps and greater than the first, but with a Rome to rule 
irrecoverably less responsive than the Augustan, to virtue 
and greatness in her ruler. 



276 College Latin Course in English. 

Pliny's just comparative rank in Roman literature does 
not require that many of our pages should be given to the 
display of his quality. At the same time, such is the per- 
fectly genuine human interest which lives in Pliny's letters, 
that out of them we could fill the half of this volume and 
readers should hardly feel that they were getting too much 
of Pliny. We shall be obliged, however, to confine our 
drafts on Pliny's treasures to about such limits as the writer's 
proportionate literary importance naturally appoints. 

All that, for the present purpose, is material, in the outward 
life of Pliny, may very briefly be told. He was born 62 A. D. 
He was in his eighteenth year, when he saw the memorable 
eruption of Vesuvius, in which his uncle perished, and in 
which Her-cu-la ne-um and Pom-pe'ii were destroyed. He 
was still under twenty, when he became professional advocate 
in Rome. He had his apprenticeship to arms as military 
tribune in Syria. After being successively quaestor and prae- 
tor, he was made consul in the year 100. He was a senator 
of the empire; and he held other offices, not here mentioned, 
of dignity and trust. His conspicuous historical appearance 
is in the capacity of propraetor in the province of Pontus and 
Bithynia. This propraetorship became to him the occasion 
of his writing to the emperor Trajan a letter which will make 
the name of Pliny memorable as long as the Christian relig- 
ion endures. This letter we shall presently show. Pliny 
was twice married, but, like so many Romans of the slowly 
declining empire, he was childless. 

The volume devoted to Pliny in Ancient Classics for En- 
glish Readers is perhaps as full of interest for readers of 
all classes as any volume whatever belonging to that series. 
It was prepared, and admirably prepared, by Messrs. Church 
& Brodribb, authors of those translations of Livy and Tac- 
itus which we have copiously used in this volume. (Mr. 
Church has incidentally done still another valuable service 
to the cause of popular classical culture, in compiling and 



Pliny. 277 

editing a series of volumes made up of appetizing extracts 
and stories out of ancient authors. These volumes are illus- 
trated with striking pictures in color from different hands. 
The last number of the series takes its name from Cicero : 
" Roman Life in the Days of Cicero." Messrs. Dodd, Mead, 
& Co. republish the books in this country.) 

We begin with Pliny's account of his own experience in 
that memorable volcanic eruption. He, with his mother and 
his uncle, was at Mi-se num, near Naples and therefore near 
Vesuvius. His uncle had set out, with a fleet of galleys 
which he commanded, to carry succor to those inhabitants 
of the vicinity who were more immediately threatened with 
disaster. This benevolent purpose had finally superseded 
the philosopher's scientific curiosity. Let Pliny, the nephew, 
now take up the narrative. We quote and condense from a 
letter of his, a letter highly characteristic, in several ways, of 
the writer : 

There had been noticed for many days before a trembling of the earth. 
. . . But that night it was so violent, that one thought that every thing 
was being not merely moved, but absolutely overturned. . . . We sat down 
in the open court of the house. . . . And now — I do not know whether 
to call it courage or folly, for I was but in my eighteenth year — I called 
for a volume of Livy, read it, as if I were perfectly at leisure, and even 
continued to make some extracts which I had begun. ... It was now 
seven o'clock in the morning. . . . The danger that they [the surrounding 
buildings] might fall on us was imminent and unmistakable. So we at 
last determined to quit the town. A panic-stricken crowd followed us. 
They preferred the ideas of others to their own — in a moment of terror 
this has a certain look of prudence — and they pressed on us and -drove 
us on, as we departed, by their dense array. When we had got away 
from the building we stopped. There we had to endure the sight of 
many marvellous, many dreadful, things. The carriages which we had 
directed to be brought out moved about in opposite directions, though 
the ground was perfectly level ; even when scotched with stones they 
did not remain steady in the same place. Besides this, we saw the sea 
retire into itself, seeming, as it were, to be driven back by the trembling 
movement of the earth. The shore had distinctly advanced, and many 
marine animals were left high and dry upon the sands. Behind us was 



78 College Latin Course in English. 

a dark and dreadful cloud, which as it was broken with rapid zigzag 
flashes, revealed behind it variously shaped masses of flame: these last 
were like sheet-lightning, though on a larger scale. . . . Ashes now 
began to fall — still, however, in small quantities. I looked behind me ; 
a dense, dark mist seemed to be following us, spreading itself over the 
country like a cloud. " Let us turn out of the way," I said, " whilst we 
can still see, for fear that should we fall in the road we should be trod- 
den under foot in the darkness by the throngs that accompany us." We 
had scarcely sat down when night was upon us — not such as we have 
when there is no moon, or when the sky is cloudy, but such as there is 
in some closed room when the lights are extinguished. You might hear 
the shrieks of women, the monotonous wailing of children, the shouts of 
men. Many were raising their voices, and seeking to recognize by the 
voices that replied, parents, children, husbands, or wives. Some were 
loudly lamenting their own fate, others the fate of those dear to them. 
Some even prayed for death, in their fear of what they prayed for. 
Many lifted their hands in prayer to the gods more were convinced that 
there were now no gods at all, and that the final endless night of which 
we have heard had come upon the world. ... It now grew somewhat 
light again", we felt sure that this was not the light of day, but a proof 
that fire was approaching us. Fire there was, but it stopped at a con- 
siderable distance from us ; then came darkness again, and a thick 
heavy fall of ashes. Again and again we stood up and shook them off ; 
otherwise we should have been covered by them, and even crushed by 
the weight. I might boast that not a sigh, not a word wanting in 
courage, escaped me, even in the midst of peril so great, had I not been 
convinced that I was perishing in company with the universe, and the 
universe with me — a miserable and yet a mighty solace in death. 



Pliny was enthusiastically fond of country life. He 
owned several country-seats, at one or another of which he 
passed most of his time. But wherever he was, in city or 
in country, or however otherwise he was employed, he was 
constantly and consistently by eminence a man of books. 
Literature with him was a vocation and a passion. Let us 
have a picture of Pliny drawn by himself, in this capacity of 
literary man enjoying the leisure of life in the country. Our 
picture we find in a letter of his addressed to his friend 
Fuscus : 



Pliny. 279 

You wish to know how I dispose of my t'me in the summer at my 
Tuscan villa. I awake without being called, generally about six o'clock, 
sometimes earlier, but seldom later. My windows remain shut, as I find 
the darkness and quiet have a very happy effect on the mind. Being 
thus withdrawn from all objects which call off the attention, I am left to 
my own thoughts ; and instead of suffering my mind to wander with my 
eyes, I keep my eyes in subjection to my mind. If I have any literary 
work on hand, I think over it, and revise the style and expression, just 
as if I had my pen in my hand. Thus I get through more or less work, 
according as the subject is more or less difficult, and I find my memory 
able to retain it. Then I call for my amanuensis, and having opened 
the windows, I dictate to him what 1 have composed ; then I dismiss 
him for awhile, and call him in again. About ten or eleven (for I do 
not observe any fixed hour), according to the weather, I walk on the 
terrace or in the colonnade, and then I think over or dictate what I had 
left unfinished. Then I have a drive, and employ myself as before, and 
find this change of scene refreshing to my mind, and it enables me to 
apply it with more vigor. On my return I take a short nap ; then I 
stroll out, and repeat aloud a Greek or Latin speech, not so much to 
strengthen my voice as my digestion, though my voice is improved at 
the same time. I then have another stroll, take my usual exercise, 
and bathe. At dinner, if I have only my wife or a few friends with me, a 
book is read to us, and after dinner we have some music or a little play 
acted. Then I walk out with my friends, among whom are some men 
of learning. Thus we pass the evening in various conversation, and the 
day, even when it is at the longest, soon comes to an end. Sometimes 
I make a little change in this order. If I have remained in bed, or taken 
a longer walk than usual, I have a ride instead of a drive, after having 
read aloud one or two speeches. Thus I get more exercise in less time. 
My friends now and then look in upon me from the neighboring vil- 
lages, and occasionally, when I am tired, their visits are a pleasant relief. 
Sometimes 1 hunt, but I always take my notebook with me, so that if I 
get no sport, I may at any rate bring something back with me. Part of 
my time is given to my tenants, though not so much as they would like. 
Their rustic squabbles make me return with fresh zest to my studies and 
more cultivated occupations. 

How delightfully modern that seems ! A great fellowship 
is the republic of letters. The writer of the foregoing epistle 
would at once be at home among literary men of to-day, 
wherever met, in New York or Boston, in London, in Paris. 



280 College Latin Course in English. 



Pliny seems to have exercised, as a man of substance among 
his rustic neighbors, something of the magistrate's function — ■ 
like an English country squire. 

We must not spend much time with Pliny's individual 
habits as a man of letters. But a glimpse of what was gen- 
eral usage in the literary world, before the invention of print- 
ing, will be relished by our readers. Such a glimpse is 
afforded in one of Pliny's letters, describing a set occasion 
on which the writer, in his capacity as poet — for Pliny was 
versatile enough to be poet too — read his productions to a 
select circle of personal friends for the benefit to be derived 
from their criticisms. This indicates a practice not pe- 
culiar to Pliny. Such a course as his was quite the thing 
among literary men in the Rome of that day. Pliny's poems 
now produced were some comparatively light effusions of his 
genius. He writes to a friend in description of the affair. 
It will be seen that — agreeable as no doubt the urbanity and 
the generosity of the poet-host made the occasion — it was a 
distinctly serious affair, that two days' session of friends in 
council over Pliny's lively-meant poems : 

I chose for producing these, the most seasonable time and place. To 
accustom them in good time to be heard by listeners that are taking their 
ease, and at the dinner-table, I collected my friends in the month of July, 
when the law courts have least to do, and put writing-desks before their 
chairs. It so happened that on the- morning of the day I was called 
away to an unexpected case in court. This gave me an opportunity for 
some words of preface. I begged my friends not to think that it showed 
me wanting in respect to what I had in hand if, when meaning to read, 
though it was only to friends and to a small audience (another word 
for friends), I did not abstain from the business of the forum. I 
added, that even in writing I followed this order — put my friendship be- 
fore my pleasures, my business before my amusement, and wrote first 
for my friends, secondly for myself. My book contained a variety of 
compositions and metres. 'Tis thus that I am accustomed, trusting but 
little to my talent, to avoid the risk of being wearisome. My reading 
lasted two days. The approval of my audience made this necessary ; 
and yet, while some readers pass over part of their volume, and make 



Pliny. 281 

a merit of passing it over, I pass over nothing, and tell my hearers as 
much. I read every thing, because I want to correct every thing — a thing 
which those who read extracts only cannot do. The other plan, you 
may say, is more modest, and possibly more respectful. Well, but this 
is more honest and more affectionate. Genuine affection is so confident 
of affection in return, as not to be afraid of wearying a friend. Besides, 
what benefit do one's companions confer if they assemble only for the 
sake of pleasing themselves? It is very like indolence, when a man 
would sooner hear his friend read a book already good, than help to 
make it good. Doubtless, in your general affection for me, you will 
want to read as soon as possible this book, which is still " fermenting." 
You shall read it. but after it has passed through my hands again. This 
was my reason for reading it aloud. 

What winning confidence those closing sentences exhibit 
Pliny as having exercised, in the working and enduring qual- 
ities of the friendship he had inspired! A confidence even 
too winning, perhaps, for the strict fidelity of the criticisms 
elicited. A genial man, such as Pliny undoubtedly was, 
has his critical literary friends much at disadvantage when 
entertaining them thus in the threefold character of host, of 
poet, and of reader. It would go hard but Pliny got from his 
critics, those days, some highly favorable opinions of his poeti- 
cal workmanship. Let us not fail to note in Pliny's expres- 
sions what a charming reflex light is thrown on the man's 
character who employed them. No one would count thus on 
fidelity of friendship toward himself, who was not, on his own 
side, conscious of maintaining like fidelity of friendship 
toward others. No cynic was this Pliny, to conceive a 
bore as — the man who insists on talking about himself all the 
time that you are anxious to be talking about yourself! If 
he were anything himself of a bore — and perish the thought ! 
Pliny at least never found a bore among his friends. Every 
friend of his, he saw in a color of rose that plentifully flushed 
outward upon all from his own gracious spirit. Such men 
as Pliny are rare, but every such man is a benediction. 

One glimpse now of Pliny as a man of the world — the 



282 College Latin Course in English. 

world that dines, and gives dinners. We quote briefly from 
Messrs. Church and Brodribb's volume on Pliny. The Virro 
spoken of is a character in one of Juvenal's satires : 

" It was once Pliny's misfortune to have to dine, as a com- 
parative stranger, with a man like Virro, who thought him- 
self (so Pliny says) an exceedingly elegant and attentive 
host, but who really combined expense with stinginess. 
There were three kinds of wine ; the best he reserved for 
himself and Pliny, the next best for his inferior friends, while 
the worst was given to his freedmen and to those of Pliny, 
who, it appears, were present. One of the guests who sat by 
Pliny observed the arrangement, and, turning round, asked 
him what he thought of it, and whether he approved of it. 
Pliny shook his head. 'Well, then, what do you do on such 
occasions ? ' 'I give all my guests the same wine,' said Pliny, 
' for when I ask them to dinner, I look on my freedmen as 
my guests, and forget that they were once slaves.' " 

Pliny, evidently, by birth and by breeding, understood 
what it was to be a gentleman. This gentleman-like quality 
in Pliny enabled him — man of books though he was — to enter 
into sympathetic relations with men of affairs. Men of af- 
fairs, accordingly, were some members of that remarkable 
group of illustrious friends associated with the name and 
fame of Pliny. Of these, foremost perhaps was Verginius 
Rufus — a name that occurs, and more than once, in the his- 
tory of Tacitus. We shorten from a letter of Pliny an ac- 
count of this man's death : 

He died in his eighty-fourth year, in the most perfect calm, reverenced 
by all. . . . His last illness, indeed, was severe and tedious, but its cir- 
cumstances added to his reputation. He was one day practicing his 
voice with the view of delivering a speech of thanks to the emperor for 
having promoted him to the consulship, and had taken in his hand a 
large volume, which was rather too heavy for an old man to hold as he 
stood up. It slipped from his grasp, and in hastily trying to recover it, 
his foot slipped on the smooth pavement ; he fell and broke his thigh- 
bone, which being badly set (his age being against him), did not properly 



Pliny. 283 

unite. His funeral obsequies have done honor to the emperor, to the 
age, and to the bar. Cornelius Tacitus, as consul, pronounced over him 
the funeral oration. His good fortune was crowned by having so elo- 
quent a speaker to celebrate his praises. He died, indeed, full of years 
and of glory, famous even from honors which he had refused. 

Verginius Rufus was more than emperor — he had refused 
to be emperor. 

Another of Pliny's friends was Vestricius Spurinna. Spu- 
rinna was a man whom Mr. Lowell might have written a de- 
lightful essay about, with the title "A Great Public Char- 
acter." He was a Roman, to be likened, in long-surviving 
venerable age and venerable character, to that American 
Roman, Josiah Quincy — a picturesque, or rather perhaps 
statuesque, figure among us, but lately gone hence, who 
seemed, while still living, to bring down to our own days the 
first days of our Republic, as, for Plin)' - , Spurinna revived the 
age that preceded the empire. When you read the following 
letter of Pliny's (translated in Dean Merivale's "History of 
the Romans under the Empire "), you must remember that 
the subject of it is now a man who ' has lived,' as the Romans 
might say, that is, a man whose life of achievement is past 
and who rests on his laurels — laurels well earned, and envied 
to their possessor by no one. Pliny had a fine instinct of 
reverence. A quite enchanting person he must have been 
for an old man to have for a friend. Doubtless he idealizes 
somewhat in describing the old age of Spurinna; but is it 
not a lovely picture that Pliny here draws, of repose enjoyed 
after "long labor unto aged breath "? You miss in it only 
one light — a light that never was on sea or land— the light 
from a future foreshown through faith in Him who is the 
resurrection and the life. Now Pliny's letter: 

I know not that I ever passed a pleasanter time than lately with 
Spurinna. There is indeed no man I should so much wish to resemble 
in my own old age, if I am permitted to grow old. Nothing can be finer 
than such a mode of life. For my part I like a well-ordered course of 



284 College Latin Course in English. 

life, particularly in old men, just as I admire the regular order of the 
stars. Some amount of irregularity, and even of confusion, is not unbe- 
coming in youth ; but every thing should be regular and methodical with 
old men, who are too late for labor, and in whom ambition would be in- 
decent. This regularity Spurinna strictly observes, and his occupations, 
trifling as they are (trifling, that is, were they not performed day by day 
continually), he repeats as it were in a circle. At dawn he keeps his 
bed, at seven he asks for his slippers ; he then walks just three miles, 
exercising his mind at the same time with his limbs. If friends are by, 
he discourses seriously with them ; if not, he hears a book read ; and so 
he sometimes does even when friends are present, if it be not disagree- 
able to them. He then seats himself, and more reading follows, or more 
conversation, which he likes better. By and by he mounts his carriage, 
taking with him his wife, a most admirable woman, or some friends — as 
myself, for instance, the other day. What a noble, what a charming 
tete-a-tele ! — how much talk of ancient things ! what deeds, what men, 
you hear of! what noble precepts you imbibe, though, indeed, he refrains 
from all appearance of teaching ! Returning from a seven-mile drive, 
he walks again one mile ; then sits down or reclines with a pen in his 
ha' d, for he composes lyrical pieces with elegance both in Greek and 
Latin. Very soft, sweet, and merry they are, and their charm is en- 
hanced by the decorum of the author's own habits. When the hour of 
the bath is announced — that is, at two in summer, at three in winter — 
he strips and takes a turn in the sun, if there is no wind. Then he uses 
strong exercise for a considerable space at tennis, for this is the disci- 
pline with which he struggles against old age. After the bath he takes 
his place at table, but puts off eating for a time, listening in the 
meanwhile to a little light and pleasant reading. All this time his 
friends are free to do as he does, or anything else they please. Dinner 
is then served, elegant and moderate, on plain but ancient silver. He 
uses Corinthian bronzes, too, and admires without being foolishly ad- 
dicted to them. Players are often introduced between the courses, that 
the pleasures of the mind may give a relish to those of the palate. He 
trenches a little on the night even in summer ; but no one finds the time 
tire, such are his kindness and urbanity throughout. Hence now, at 
the age of seventy-seven, he both hears and sees perfectly ; hence his 
frame is active and vigorous ; he has nothing but old age to remind him 
to take care of himself. Such is the mode of life to which I look for- 
ward for myself, and on which I will enter with delight as soon as ad- 
vancing years allow me to effect a retreat. Meanwhile I am harassed 
by a thousand troubles, in which Spurinna is my consolation, as he has 



Pliny. 285 

ever been my example. For he, too, as long as it became him, dis- 
charged duties, bore offices, governed provinces ; and great was the la- 
bor by which he earned his relaxation. 

Corellius Rufus, another friend of Pliny, grew old differ- 
ently, but after a manner certainly not less Roman. His 
death was perhaps nothing but "well and fair," according 
to the accepted ideas of his time; but it was no euthanasy, 
judged by any standard. Let Pliny tell the story of it. The 
translation we use occurs in Merivale's history : 

I have just suffered a great loss. My friend Corellius Rufus is dead, 
and by his own act, which embitters my sorrow. No death is so much 
to be lamented as one that comes not in the course of fate or nature. 
Corellius, indeed, was led to this resolve by the force of reason, which 
holds with philosophers the place of necessity, although he had many 
motives for living — a good conscience, a high reputation and influence, not 
to mention a daughter, a wife, a grandson, sisters, and true friends besides. 
But he was tortured by so protracted a malady that his reasons for death 
outweighed all these advantages. . . . The disease was hereditary with 
him. In the vigor of life he had checked it by sobriety and restraint ; 
when it grew worse with increasing years, he had borne it with fortitude 
and patience. I visited him one day, in Domitian's time, and found 
him in the greatest suffering, for the disease had spread from the feet all 
through his limbs. His slaves quitted the room, for such was their 
habit whenever an intimate friend came to see him ; and such was also 
his wife's practice, though she could have kept any secret. After cast- 
ing his eyes around, he said, " Why do you suppose it is I continue so 
long to endure these torments? I would survive the ruffian [meaning 
Domitian] just one day." Had his body been as strong as his mind, 
this wish he would have effected with his own hand. God granted it, 
however ; and when he felt that he should die a free man, he burst 
through all the lesser ties which bound him to life. The malady which 
he had tried so long to relieve by temperance still increased. At last 
his firmness gave way. Two, three, four days passed, and he had re- 
fused all food. His wife, Hispulla. sent our friend Geminius to me, with 
the melancholy news that her husband had resolved to die, and would 
not be dissuaded by her prayers or her daughter's ; I alone could pre- 
vail upon him. I flew to him. I had almost reached the spot, when 
Atticus met me from Hispulla to say that even T could not now prevail, 
so fixed had become his determination. To his physician, indeed, on 



286 College Latin Course in English. 

food being offered him, he had said, " I have decided ; " an expression 
which makes me the more regret him, as I the more admire him. 

The fashion in suicide had changed from the time when 
bleeding to death was the favorite mode. What grim Roman 
courage and pride, but what dreary views of life, and of death, 
and of that which follows death, were implied in stark self- 
starving by way of forlorn escape from otherwise inevitable ill ! 
Pliny elsewhere tells us of a Roman wife in health who bound 
herself to her husband suffering from incurable disease, and, 
so bracing his less resolute spirit to the act, leaped with him 
into Lake Como to free him from his burden of life. 

We began with bringing Pliny hither toward our own times, 
by some traits and habits in him that made him seem almost 
a man of to-day. We have- since been pushing him back to 
a truly ancient and alien age, by a sad environment shown 
beleaguering him, of pagan pessimism — not the make-believe 
sentiment that preaches, but the sentiment real and earnest 
that practices, suicide. Let us have Pliny back again among 
us, a living man once more, a man as modern as philan- 
thropist Mr. Peabody. We shall make him seem changed 
almost Christian from Pagan, as well as almost modern from 
ancient. 

Pliny writes to his friend, the great historian Tacitus, for 
assistance. It is in a certain project of benevolence enter- 
tained by the ..writer that the assistance is invoked. The 
following extract, which we may confidently expect to ex- 
cite the gratified surprise of our readers, will need no ex- 
planation : 

Being lately at my native town, a young lad, son of one of my neigh- 
bors, came to pay me a complimentary call. " Do you go to school ? " I 
asked him. " Yes," he replied. " Where ? " " At Mediolanum." " Why 
not here ? " " Because," said his father, who had come with him, " we have 
no professors here." "No professors! Why, sm-ely, " I replied, "it 
would be very much to the interest of all you fathers (and, fortunately, 
several fathers heard what I said) to have your sons educated here 



Pliny. 287 

rather than anywhere else. ... I have no children myself; I look on 
my native town in the light of a child on a parent, and I am ready to 
advance a third part of any sum which you think fit to raise for the pur- 
pose. I would even promise the whole amount, were I not afraid that 
my benefaction might be spoilt by jobbery, as I see happens in many 
towns where teachers are engaged at the public expense." 

A wise, as well as a generous, giver, this man, you observe, 
endeavors to be. Consider if Mr. Peabody's late prudent 
provision for promoting education in the South of our 
country was not substantially anticipated by this forecasting 
philanthropist of ancient pagan Rome. Christianity was now 
about a hundred years old in the world. Had some influ- 
ence from it traveled through the air to reach the uncon- 
scious heart of Pliny? Alas, then also " jobbery " was to be 
guarded against — even in the administration of a sacred be- 
nevolent trust ! Pliny, fain to have given himself the whole, 
dared give but a third part of the sum to be raised. But he 
wanted his third part to be large. He reports himself as 
saying : 

So take counsel together, and be encouraged by my example, and be 
assured that the greater my proportion of the expense shall be, the better 
shall I be pleased. 

What Pliny asked from Tacitus was help in securing good 
teachers for his proposed foundation. 

One love-letter now from Pliny to his wife, and the man 
shall be considered to have been sufficiently self-portrayed to 
our readers. The letter is short, but to Calpurnia the wife 
it was sweet : 

You will not believe what a longing for you possesses me. The chief 
cause of this is my love ; and then we have not grown used to be apart. 
So it comes to pass that I spend a great part of the night in a wakeful- 
ness that dwells on your image ; and that by day, when the hours 
return at which I was wont to visit you, my feet take me, as is so truly 
said, to your chamber; and that at last, sick and sad at heart, like a 
lover whom his mistress shuts out, I depart from the empty threshold. 
The only time that is free from these torments is when I am being worn 



288 College Latin Course in English. 



out by the business of the courts and the suits of my friends. Judge 
you what must be my life when I find my repose in toil, my solace in 
wretchedness and anxiety. 

Who would have looked to find that exquisite snatch from 
Shelley's serenade, 

"And a spirit in my feet 

Has led me — who knows how ? 

To thy chamber- window, sweet" — 

hiding in a love-letter of Pliny's, and confessing itself already 
old when that love-letter was written ! 

Pliny must, upon the whole, seem very modern, very life- 
like, to readers of what has here been shown of his letters. 
This by virtue of what he manifestly was in himself. But his 
historic place also had the effect, by a striking chance that 
befell him, to remove Pliny for us out of that world which 
perished utterly with the perishing of Olympianism, and set 
him forward into that new world which was created by 
Christianity. This polished, this humane Roman gentleman 
came, as provincial governor, into contact with Christians. 
It was the touch of Ithuriel's spear. It found Pliny out but 
a pagan — though so charming a pagan — a pagan, after all. 

It is only justice to Trajan and Pliny, as also to the states- 
men in general of imperial Rome, to say on their behalf that, 
to them, the measures of persecution enforced against Chris- 
tians not unnaturally seemed warranted by the principle of 
self-defense. A despotism like the empire could not perma- 
nently endure with the Christian Church fostered in its 
bosom. The Christian Church was imperium in imperio — an 
empire within the empire. The emperors were wise in 
their generation to see this. They tried to suppress the 
Christian Church, not as a religious society, but as a society. 
Any society was dangerous to the empire. 

We give now Pliny's famous letter to the emperor Trajan. 
What he says in the first sentence was true, to an extent that 






Pliny. 289 

must have made good Pliny a trifle troublesome now and 
again to the busy ruler of the world. But the present occa- 
sion of resort to his imperial chief for instruction was cer- 
tainly important enough : 

It is my invariable rule to refer to you in all matters about which I 
feel doubtful. Who can better remove my doubts or inform my igno- 
rance ? I have never been present at any trials of Christians, so that I 
do not know what is the nature of the charge against them or what is 
the usual punishment. Whether any difference or distinction is made 
between the young and persons of mature years — whether repentance of 
their fault entitles them to pardon — whether the very profession of 
Christianity, unaccompanied by any criminal act, or whether only the 
crime itself involved in the profession, is a subject of punishment ; on all 
these points I am in great doubt. Meanwhile, as to those persons who 
have been charged before me with being Christians, I have observed the 
following method : I asked them whether they were Christians ; if they 
admitted it, I repeated the question twice, and threatened them with 
punishment ; if they persisted, I ordered them to be at once punished. 
I could not doubt that whatever might be the nature of their opinions, 
such inflexible obstinacy deserved punishment. Some were brought be- 
fore me, possessed with the same infatuation, who were Roman citizens ; 
these I took care should be sent to Rome. As often happens, the accu- 
sation spread, from being followed, and various phases of it came under 
my notice. An anonymous information was laid before me, containing 
a great number of names. Some said they neither were and never had 
been Christians ; they repeated after me an invocation of the gods, and 
offered wine and incense before your statue (which I had ordered 
to be brought for that purpose, together with those of the gods), and 
even reviled the name of Christ; whereas there is no forcing, it is said, 
those who are really Christians into any of these acts. These I thought 
ought to be discharged. Some among them, who were accused by a 
witness in person, at first confessed themselves Christians, but imme- 
diately after denied it ; the rest owned that they had once been Chris- 
tians, but had now (some above three years, others more and a few above 
twenty years ago) renounced the profession. They all worshiped your 
statue and those of the gods, and uttered imprecations against the name 
of Christ. They declared that their offense or crime was summed up in 
this, that they met on a stated day before day-break, and addressed a 
form of prayer to Christ, as to a divinity, binding themselves by a sol- 
emn oath, not for any wicked purpose, but never to commit fraud, theft, 
13 



290 College Latin Course in English. 

or adultery, never to break their word, or to deny a trust when called on 
to deliver it up : after which it was their custom to separate, and then 
re-assemble, and to eat together a harmless meal. From this custom, 
however, they desisted after the proclamation of my edict, by which, 
according to your commands, I forbade the meeting of any assemblies. 
In consequence of their declaration, I judged it necessary to try to get at 
the real truth by putting to the torture two female slaves, who are said 
to officiate in their religious rites ; but all I could discover was evidence 
of an absurd and extravagant superstition. And so I adjourned all 
further proceedings in order to consult you. It seems to me a matter 
deserving your consideration, more especially as great numbers must be 
involved in the danger of these prosecutions, which have already ex- 
tended, and are still likely to extend, to persons of all ranks, ages, and of 
both sexes. The contagion of the superstition is not confined to the 
cities, it has spread into the villages and the country. Still I think it 
may be checked. At any rate, the temples which were almost aban- 
doned, again begin to be frequented, and the sacred rites, so long neg- 
lected, are revived, and there is also a general demand for victims for 
sacrifice, which, till lately, found very few purchasers. From all this it 
is easy to conjecture what numbers might be reclaimed, if a general 
pardon were granted to those who repent of their error. 

" The light shineth in darkness and the darkness compre- 
hended it not ! " 

Trajan replied as follows : 

You have adopted the right course in investigating the charges made 
against the Christians who were brought before you. It is not possible to 
lay down any general rule for all such cases. Do not go out of your way to 
look for them. If they are brought before you, and the offense is proved, 
you must punish them ; but with this restriction, that when the person 
denies that he is a Christian, and shall make it evident that he is not by 
invoking the gods, he is to be pardoned, notwithstanding any former 
suspicion against him. Anonymous informations ought not to be received 
in any sort of prosecution. It is introducing a very dangerous precedent, 
and is quite foreign to the spirit of our age. 

'Against the spirit of our age,' was, it seems, a phrase then, 
as it is now. The appeal happens, in this instance, to have 
been well and wisely taken by Trajan. But traits there were 
belonging to the spirit of Trajan's age, which might profit- 



Pliny. 291 

ably admonish us how far off the formula is from being, in 
any case, a necessary conclusion of argument. 

Farewell to Pliny. 

Pliny persecuted Christians. But so did Saul of Tarsus. 
And Saul of Tarsus sought out Christians that he might 
persecute them — as did not either Pliny or Trajan. Saul of 
Tarsus was " exceedingly mad " against Christians. Pliny 
was considerate and moderate. Saul found mercy because 
he acted ignorantly in unbelief. Pliny too acted in unbelief, 
and in unbelief more deeply ignorant than Saul's. 

Farewell to Pliny. Let him rest. The question for me 
is, Am I as much wiser, as much better, than Pliny as my 
light is greater than his ? 



IX. 

QUINTILIAN. 



We reach now the concluding chapter at once of the 
volume and of the series. Happily, in treating here of 
Quintilian, we can make this chapter serve as a kind of epi- 
logue, a retrospect of all the preceding part of our work. 

Easily prince among Roman producers of what may be 
called * literature about literature ' is Quintilian. Quintilian 
falls — as, somewhat farther, does Pliny — on the hither side of 
the line that bounds the strictly classic period in Latin litera- 
ture. He was late enough to be in position for passing under 
review — and this, in his rhetorical and critical treatise, The 
Education of the Orator, he actually does — every Roman 
author considered in our two volumes devoted to the litera- 
ture of Rome. His work of critical estimation was even 
more comprehensive than this. For Quintilian extended the 
scope of his observations to include also the principal 
Greek writers as well as the Roman. It thus happens that. 



292 College Latin Course in English, 

in displaying Quintilian's own individual quality as author, 
we shall be able, very naturally, to produce out of his book, 
highly interesting and valuable critical appreciations of nearly 
all the literary names, both Greek and Roman, that from 
first to last have been represented in this whole series of 
volumes. 

Marcus Fabius Quin-til-i-a'nus was a Spaniard, as also was 
his senior contemporary and rival, Annaeus Seneca. Rival 
to Quintilian, we call Seneca. But these two writers were 
more than mutual rivals. They were antagonists. They 
represented severally two opposite tastes and tendencies in 
literary style. Seneca was the beginner in Rome of the 
style that seeks epigram, point, brilliancy, at sacrifice of sim- 
plicity, naturalness, truth. It belonged to the character 
of Seneca as man, that he should have this character as 
writer. For it is only just to say, that the view of Seneca 
obtainable from Tacitus is, on the whole, though shaded with 
suggestion of sinister doubt, yet too favorable to the philoso- 
pher's fame. There was a good deal of alloy in Seneca's 
gold. He was partly an actor in setting up for philosopher. 
At all events, he preached a virtue that he failed, and sig- 
nally failed, to practice. It was, we repeat, entirely proper 
of such a man to be such a writer as was Seneca. But Seneca, 
though not sound to the core, was yet a strong nature. He 
exerted while living great influence on current literary 
form ; and that influence was far from being wholly for 
evil. He is, perhaps, in large part responsible for both the 
good and the bad in the style of Lucan the poet, his nephew. 
Nay, even Tacitus — who, gratefully perhaps, treated his master 
but too well in his history — was probably not a little indebted 
to Seneca for that noble, though manneristic, mold of ex- 
pression in which the historian came so naturally to cast his 
thought. 

To this elaborate, this artificial, tendency in literary style, 
Quintilian opposed himself, with all the authority that be- 



Quintilian. 293 



longed to his great reputation as advocate, rhetorician, and 
teacher. He became, not only for his own age, but for all 
ages to follow, a great bulwark of defense for genuine and 
wholesome taste and aspiration in literature. 

Quintilian had already, in his twofold capacity of advocate 
and rhetorician, run a brilliant career before writing the 
book by which he is known. That book in fact is the fruit 
of the observation, the experience, the study, the reflection, 
of a lifetime devoted by the author to the theme with 
which he deals. His theme is the training of the orator. 
This theme is by him conceived very freely and largely. 
According to Quintilian, the orator begins to be trained as 
soon as he is born. Quintilian thus treats of the whole mak- 
ing, and not, like Aristotle, like Cicero, like Tacitus, in their 
works on the same subject, simply of the finishing, of the 
orator. He is very suggestive and wise as to methods in 
early education. He makes our modern authorities on this 
topic seem trite. In truth, you often, in reading Quintilian, 
have the sensation of finding fresh illustration of Solomon's 
saying, that there is nothing new under the sun. 

Highly interesting, and highly instructive as well, it would 
be, to fill page after page of this volume from that store of 
sage observation on his general theme which makes Quin- 
tilian's treatise so rich a possession in literature. But, as 
already hinted, our true course will be to let Quintilian ap- 
pear before our readers, principally, as a teacher teaching 
literary art through criticism of those by whom the literary 
art has been practiced. 

We may appropriately begin with something that Quintil- 
ian has to say of Seneca, his rhetorical rival and antagonist. 
This, as well perhaps as any thing that could be exhibited, 
will serve to show at the same time the essential spirit of 
Quintilian, and the relation in which Quintilian felt himself 
to stand toward a contemporary author enjoying at the 
moment an overwhelming popularity, especially with the 



294 College Lati?i Course in E?iglish. 



young. The moderation, the firmness, the good sense, 
characteristic of Quintilian, appear in every line. He has 
reached, and half finished, the tenth of his twelve books, 
before arriving at the name of Seneca (the translation we 
use is that of Mr. J. S. Watson, found in Bonn's Classical 
Library) : 

Of Seneca I have purposely delayed to speak, in reference to any de- 
partment of eloquence, on account of a false report that has been circu- 
lated respecting me, from which I was supposed to condemn and even 
to hate him. This happened to me while I was striving to bring back 
our style of speaking, which was spoiled and enervated by every kind 
of fault, to a more severe standard of taste. At that time Seneca was 
almost the only writer in the hands of the young. I was not desirous, 
for my own part, to set him aside altogether, but I could not allow him 
to be preferred to those better authors whom he never ceased to attack, 
since, being conscious that he had adopted a different style from theirs, 
he distrusted his power of pleasing those by whom they were admired. 
. . . Still he had many and great merits. . . . There are many bright 
thoughts in him, and much that may be read for moral improvement, 
but most of his phraseology is in a vitiated taste, and most hurtful to 
students for the very reason that it abounds in pleasing faults. We 
could wish that he had written from his own mind, and under the con- 
trol of another person's judgment. . . . He would have been honored 
with the unanimous consent of the learned rather than the admiration 
of boys. Yet, such as he is, he ought to be read by those whose judg- 
ment is matured, and whose minds have been strengthened by a severer 
manner of writing, if with no other object than that the reader may ex- 
ercise his judgment for and against him. 

Another brief extract recommending simplicity and nat- 
ure, as against elaborateness and artifice, will, with what has 
preceded, suffice to indicate the wholesomeness of this great 
teacher's inculcations on the subject of literary style : 

The best words generally attach themselves to our subject, and show 
themselves by their own light ; but we set ourselves to seek for words, 
as if they were always hidden, and trying to keep themselves from being 
discovered. We never consider that they are to be found close to the 
subject on which we have to speak, but look for them, in strange places, 
and do violence to them when we have found them. It is with a more 



Quintilian. 295 



manly spirit that Eloquence is to be pursued, who, if she is in vigor 
throughout her frame, will think it no part of her study to polish her nails 
and smooth her hair. . . . The best expressions are such as are least far- 
fetched, and have an air of simplicity, appearing to spring from truth itself. 

Quintilian, as readers may perhaps already have felt reason 
to suspect, is not what one would call a sprightly writer. He 
makes no ambitious efforts after fine effects. He simply says 
what he means. In other words, he practices, himself, the 
sobriety, and the truth to fact and to nature, that he preaches 
to others. There are not wanting in his work touches of 
warmth and color — he is enthusiastic, almost passionate, some- 
times; but Quintilian 's prevailing character is — sure good 
sense, imperturbable balance, vision to see, deeply indeed not 
seldom, but clearly and truly almost always. We describe, 
not a brilliant writer, but a writer safe and wise. Quintilian 
will instruct more than he will entertain; but those earnestly 
open to be instructed will find also in Quintilian a various 
^nd opulent feast of entertainment. 

It is cheering, when, having found a man's aesthetic in- 
stincts good, you find his moral instincts also good corre- 
spondingly. Such is one's experience in studying the literary 
work of Quintilian. Quintilian stood for virtue in conduct, 
as well as for pure taste in literature. He says, and he in- 
sists, that only a good man can be a good orator. This seems 
noble ; it is noble, and it is morally inspiring. Quintilian 
communicates to his readers a generous heat of approval and 
sympathy, as he goes on contagiously maintaining this lofty 
thesis of his. But it is easy to understand Quintilian in a 
sense more favorable to his own moral attainment than the 
whole truth of his case will warrant. This rhetorician's idea 
of human goodness was a sadly bounded idea. It by no means 
escaped the (seemingly unescapable) limitations of the pagan. 
Judged by the rule of Quintilian, a man might be a man 
good enough to be eloquent, and be but a very indifferently 
good man according to the ethics of Christianity. 



296 College Latin Course in English. 

We illustrate this statement of ours by some citations from 
the text of Quintilian. The author is giving hints to advo- 
cates as to the best ways of managing witnesses under exam- 
ination in the court-room. It will be seen that he lets slip 
professional secrets, without remorse — in one word, blabs 
astonishingly. Such frankness of teaching in a published 
work would, to a reputable author, now be impossible : 

The manner of questioning witnesses remains to be considered. In 
this part of our duty, the principal point is to know the witness well ; 
for if he is timid, he may be frightened ; if foolish, misled ; if irascible, 
provoked ; if vain, flattered ; if prolix, drawn from the point. If, on the 
contrary, a witness is sensible and self-possessed, he may be hastily dis- 
missed, as malicious and obstinate ; or he may be confuted, not with 
formal questioning, but with a short address from the defendant's advo- 
cate ; or he may be put out of countenance, if opportunity offer, by a 
jest ; or, if anything can be said against his moral character, his credit 
may be overthrown by infamous charges. 

It is no province of ours to guess in what degree the fore- 
going hints to lawyers may reflect practice still current at 
the bar. Perhaps modern lawyers bully, badger, browbeat, 
confuse, ensnare, coax, wheedle, mock, discredit witnesses, 
as Quintilian prompted the lawyers of his time to do. We 
have our grave fears in the matter. But it is at least a gain 
that no longer would a writer of repute, like Quintilian, put 
himself in print as teaching these reckless tricks of the lawyer's 
trade. There has been an advance. Pagan and Christian 
are different. 

But the difference has not yet been full fairly illustrated 
from Quintilian. Quintilian has other things to say about 
the treatment of witnesses. We quote again — this time from 
what he suggests about the preliminary training of your own 
witnesses for effective public appearance in court. He says : 

We must inquire, therefore, what motives they appear to have for de- 
claring against our adversary ; nor is it sufficient to know that they were 
his enemies ; we must ascertain whether they have ceased to be so ; 



Quintilian. 297 



whether they may not seek reconciliation with him at our expense ; 
whether they have been bribed ; or whether they may not have changed 
their purpose from penitential feelings ; precautions, not only necessary 
in regard to witnesses who know that which they intend to say is true, 
but far more necessary in respect to those who promise to say what is 
false. For they are more likely to repent, and their promises are more 
to be suspected ; and even if they keep to their word, it is much more 
easy to refute them. 

Think of it — subornation of perjury an expedient calmly 
contemplated by Quintilian, as a thing proper to give advice 
about ! But this is low moral tone in the author only as the 
author was involved in the low moral tone of his age. Com- 
pared with his own contemporaries, Quintilian was apparently 
a good man. Theremin, a modern German preacher, took up 
Quintilian 's principle, that the orator must be a good man 
— the principle was Aristotle's. too, before it was Quintilian's 
— and, giving it a truly Christian scope, produced a remarka- 
ble treatise on pulpit oratory, entitled "Eloquence a Virtue." 
One who compares this little book — it has been translated 
into English by Dr. Shedd — with Quintilian's treatise, will 
find in the comparison an excellent illustration of the differ- 
ence between the " good man " of the Christian, and the 
" good man " of the pagan, ideal. 

We proceed now, as promised, to present Quintilian's 
characterization of the various writers, Greek and Roman, 
that have been exhibited in these volumes. There is but 
one way to begin, and that is the way in which Quintilian 
himself began — with Homer. Quintilian says: 

As A-ra'tus thinks that we ought to begin with Jupiter, so I think that 
I shall very properly commence with Homer ; for, as he says that the 
might of rivers and the course of springs take their rise from the 
ocean, so has he himself given a model and an origin for every species of 
eloquence. No man has excelled him in sublimity on great subjects, no 
man in propriety on small ones. He is at once copious and concise, 
pleasing and forcible ; admirable at one time for exuberance, and at an- 
other for brevity ; eminent not only for poetic, but for oratorical excel- 
13* 



298 College Latin Course i?i E?iglish. 

lence. To say nothing of his laudatory, exhortatory, and consolatory 
speeches, does not the ninth book of the Iliad, in which the deputation 
sent to Achilles is comprised, or the contention between the chiefs in the 
first book, or the opinion delivered in the second, display all the arts of 
legal pleadings and of councils? As to the feelings, as well the gentle as 
the more impetuous, there is no one so unlearned as not to acknowledge 
that he had them wholly under his control. Has he not, at the com- 
mencement of both his works, I will not say observed, but established, the 
laws of oratorical exordia ? for he renders his reader well-affected toward 
him by an invocation of the goddesses who have been supposed to pre- 
side over poets ; he makes him attentive by setting forth the grandeur of 
his subjects, and desirous of information by giving a brief and compre- 
hensive view of them. Who can state facts more concisely than he who 
relates the death of Pa-tro'clus, or more forcibly than he who describes the 
combat of the Cu-re'tes and ^Etolians ? As to similes, amplifications, 
illustrations, digressions, indications and proofs of things, and all other 
modes of establishment and refutation, examples of them are so numer- 
ous in him, that even most of those who have written on the rules of 
rhetoric produce from him illustrations of their precepts. What perora- 
tion of a speech will ever be thought equal to the entreaties of Priam 
beseeching Achilles for the body of his son? Does he not, indeed, in 
words, thoughts, figures, and the arrangement of his whole work, 
exceed the ordinary bounds of human genius? So much, indeed, that 
it requires a great man even to follow his excellences, not with rivalry 
(for rivalry is impossible), but with a just conception of them. But he 
has doubtless left all authors, in every kind of eloquence, far behind 
him. 

Of Virgil, Quiutilian speaks more briefly: 

As Homer among the Greeks, so Virgil among our own countrymen, 
presents the most auspicious commencement ; an author who of all poets 
of that class, Greek or Roman, approaches doubtless nearest to Homer. 
I will here repeat the very words which, when I was a young man, I 
heard from Domitius Afer, who, when I asked him what poet he thought 
came nearest to Homer, l-eplied, Virgil is second to him, but nearer the 
first than the third. Indeed, though we must give place to the divine 
and immortal genius of Homer, yet in Virgil there is more care and 
exactness, for the very reason that he was obliged to take more pains ; 
and for what we lose in the higher qualities we perhaps compensate in 
equability of excellence. All our other poets will follow at a great 
distance. 



Quintilian. 299 



We may naturally enough go, in the Greek line, from 
Homer the epic poet, to that Homer of prose and of history, 
Herodotus. But Quintilian harnesses Herodotus and Thu- 
cydides in a pair, to take from him their criticism together 
by mutual contrast. Quintilian : 

History many have written with eminent reputation ; but nobody 
doubts that two writers of it are greatly to be preferred to all others ; 
two, whose opposite excellences have gained nearly equal praise. Tliu- 
cydides is pithy, concise, and ever hastening forward ; Herodotus is 
pleasing, clear, and diffuse ; the one excels in the expression of animated, 
the other in that of milder sentiments ; the one in speeches, the other in 
larrative; the one in force, the other in agreeableness. 

Elsewhere, with fine, even remarkable, appreciation, Quin- 
tilian says : 

In Herodotus, assuredly, his whole style, as I at least think, has a 
smooth flow, and the very dialect which he uses has such a sweetness 
that it appears to contain within it some latent rhythmical power. 

Quintilian, as Roman, feels patriotically complacent over 
the historians that Rome produced to match with the two 
great historians of Greece. To those he fearlessly opposes, 
as equal competitors, the names of Sallust and Livy : 

In history, however, I cannot allow superiority to the Greeks ; I 
should neither fear to match Sallust against Thucydides, nor should 
Herodotus feel indignant if Livy is thought equal to him, an author of 
wonderful agreeableness, and remarkable perspicuity, in his narrative, 
and eloquent beyond expression in his speeches., so admirably is all that 
is said in his pages adapted to particular circumstances and characters ; 
and as to the feelings, especially those of the softer kind, no historian, 
to speak but with mere justice, has succeeded better in describing them. 
Hence, by his varied excellences, he has equalled in merit the immortal 
rapidity of Sallust. 

Of Tacitus — as being contemporary, and perhaps, in some 
sense, disciple, to himself — Quintilian speaks anonymously. 
but in terms of high praise : 

But there still survives, and adds lustre to the glory of our age, a man 
worthy to be remembered by the latest posterity, whose name will here- 



300 College Latin Course in English. 

after be celebrated with honor, and is now well understood. He has 
admirers, but no imitators, since the freedom of his writings, though 
some of his expressions have been pruned, has been injurious to him. 
Even in what remains, however, we may see his lofty spirit and boldness 
of thought. 

It is right to say that some have understood the foregoing 
anonymous eulogy to have Pliny for its subject. Pliny was 
distinctly and formally a pupil to Quintilian. Elsewhere the 
teacher refers to this amiable pupil by name, in frugal phrase 
of judicial commendation: "The elegance of Secundus " — 
rive English words representing two in the Latin. The 
anonymous reference, there is, we think, little doubt, was 
to Tacitus. So this historian, it seems from the hint of 
Quintilian, though bold even at last, at first had been bolder. 
He prudently retrenched from what he had too audaciously 
written. What disclosure of shameful things untold may not 
have been quenched forever under that cloak of reticence 
in Tacitus ! 

Of Xenophon, in his character as historian, Quintilian 
seemed not to deem it worth while to speak. " Xenophon," 
he says, " I have not forgotten, but he is to be noticed among 
the philosophers." Xenophon 's style Quintilian greatly ad- 
mired, as the following expression will testify : 

Why need I dwell on the sweetness of Xenophon, sweetness which is 
unaffected, but which no affectation could attain ? so that even the 
Graces themselves are said to have formed his style, and the testimony 
of the Old Comedy concerning Pericles may justly be applied to him, 
that the goddess of persuasion was seated on his lips. 

Coesar, too, as historian, Quintilian seems to slight by not 
mentioning. This, however, is from no lack of admiration 
for Caesar's literary genius; for on that great man, as orator, 
he has this impressive sentence of praise to pronounce : 

As for Julius Caesar, if he had devoted himself wholly to the forum, 
no other of our countrymen would have been named as a rival to Cicero. 
There is in him such force, such perspicuity, such fire, that he evidently 



Quintilian. 301 



spoke with the same spirit with which he fought. All these qualities, 
too, he sets off with a remarkable elegance of diction, of which he was 
peculiarly studious. 

Hear the dithyrambics in prose with which this calm 
Roman critic lauds the genius and the style of Plato: 

Of the philosophers, from whom Cicero acknowledges that he derived 
a large portion of his eloquence, who can doubt that Plato is the chief, 
as well in acuteness of reasoning, as in a certain divine and Homer-like 
power of language ? For he rises far above ordinary prose, and what 
the Greeks call oratio pe-des'tiis, so that he appears to me to be animated, 
not with mere human genius, but with the inspiration as it were of the 
Delphic oracle. 

Quintilian from Plato goes on to Aristotle. This writer 
he praises for grace of style in terms that what remains to us 
of Aristotle's work seems hardly to justify. He says : 

Why need I speak of the merits of Aristotle, of whom I am in doubt 
whether I should deem him more admirable for his knowledge of things, 
for the multitude of his writings, for the agreeableness of his language, 
the penetration shown in his discoveries, or the variety exhibited in his 
works? 

Cicero enjoys the distinction of being, among all writers, 
the confessed favorite of Quintilian. His name is constantly 
recurring by way of example throughout the entire treatise. 
Quintilian does not make it part of his plan to say much of 
Cicero in his distinctive capacity as philosophical writer. 
Much in little, however, is this single sentence : " Cicero, who 
distinguished himself on all subjects, stands forth in this [the 
discussion of philosophy] as a rival to Plato." What more, 
after the praise bestowed by him on Plato, could Quintilian 
have said on behalf of his Tully ? The following allusion, 
made swiftly in passing, is not without interest. Quintilian is 
recommending to the orator the habit of composing in other 
'iterary lines than those of his own particular profession : 

The copious style of history may be tried with advantage for exercis- 
ing the pen ; and we may indulge in the easy style of dialogues. Ncr 
will it be prejudicial to our improvement to amuse ourselves with verse ; 



302 College Latin Course in English. 

as athletes, relaxing at times from their fixed rules for food and exercise, 
recruit themselves with ease and more inviting dainties. It was from 
this cause, as it seems to me, that Cicei-o threw such a glorious brilliancy 
over his eloquence, that he used freely to ramble in such sequestered 
walks of study. 

Quintilian would have the orator qualify his style with 
generous influence received from poetry. For this reason it 
falls in his way to remark on the characteristics of most of 
the ancient masters in poetical composition. We turn with 
pleasure to the choir of the poets, not indeed now to hear 
them sing, but, what also is delightful, to hear their singing 
wisely descanted upon. Of ' The Poet,' by eminence, Homer 
— both because he was the first forefather of classical litera- 
ture, and because he was beyond comparison more command- 
ing than any ancient literary name besides — we allow Quin- 
tilian to speak in precedence of all other writers, and, as it 
were, in separation from them ; of Homer, and by necessary 
association with Homer, of Virgil. Lucretius, by the way, 
coupled with a forgotten name of poet, one Macer, is at- 
tached as pendent in mention to Virgil, from the circum- 
stance of his using " the same manner of verse " as that em- 
ployed in the ^Eneid : 

Macer and Lucretius should be read indeed, but not in order to form 
such a style as constitutes the fabric of eloquence; each is an elegant 
writer on his own subject, but the one is tame, and the other difficult. 

Ennius, in close sequel, is handsomely bowed out of pres- 
ence as follows : 

Ennius we may venerate, as we venerate groves sacred from their 
antiquity ; groves in which gigantic and aged oaks affect us not so much 
by their beauty, as by the religious awe with which they inspire us. 

Ovid gets sharp censure, correctively dashed with praise : 

Ovid allows his imagination to wanton, even in his heroic verse, and 
is too much a lover of his own conceits, but deserves praise in certain 
passages. 

" This great man," elsewhere, Quintilian calls Ovid. 



Quintilian. 303 



Virgil, however, was not like Homer, simply an heroic 
poet. He was, in the Georgics, didactic like Hesiod, and in 
his eclogues, idyllic like Theocritus. Of Hesiod, a name 
singularly void of other attraction than that of antiquity, 
Quintilian says : 

As for Hesiod, he rarely rises above the general level, and a great 
part of his poetry is occupied with mere names, 

Theocritus is very briefly dismissed with : 

Theocritus is admirable in his peculiar style, but his rustic and pasto- 
ral muse shrinks not only from appearing in the forum, but even from 
approaching the city. 

Quintilian loves to praise freely, and Pindar affords him a 
chance to indulge this generous passion : 

Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is by far the chief in nobleness of spirit, 
grandeur of thought, beauty of figures, and a most happy exuberance of 
matter and words, spreading forth as it were in a flood of eloquence ; on 
account of all which qualities Horace justly thinks him inimitable. 

Alcseus also inspires Quintilian : 

Alcaeus is deservedly complimented with a golden quill for that part 
of his works in which he inveighs against tyrants, and contributes much 
to the improvement of morals. In his language, also, he is concise, 
magnificent, and careful, and in many passages resembles Homer ; but 
he descends to sportive and amorous subjects, though better qualified for 
those of a higher nature.. 

Simonides is favorably spoken of: 

Simonides, though in other respects of no very high genius, may be 
commended for a propriety of language, and a pleasing kind of sweet- 
ness ; but his chief excellence is in exciting pity, so that some prefer 
him, in that particular, to all other writers of the kind. 

Sappho receives no mention from Quintilian. 
Of Roman lyric poets, Horace is pitted alone, though not 
as a match, against the nine lyric poets of Greece : 

Of our lyric poets, Horace is almost the only one that deserves to be 
read ; for he soars occasionally, is full of agreeableness and grace, and 
shows a most happy daring in certain figures and expressions. 



304 College Latin Course in English, 

We have ascribed to Quintilian a kind of absoluteness in 
the sagacity and justness of his criticisms. What now, we 
well may wonder, will thoughtful readers say, when they see 
the strain of laudation in which this sanest of writers pays 
tribute to the poetical genius of — whom, forsooth, but that 
imperial monster, Domitian ! Quintilian says: 

The government of the world has diverted Germanicus Augustus 
[Domitian] from the studies which he had commenced, and it did not 
seem sufficient to the gods that he should be the greatest of poets. Yet 
what can be more sublime, more learned, more excellent in all respects, 
than the works on which he had entered in his youth, when he gave up 
his military command? 

And so on, through a page of fulsome compliment. We 
are to understand that, by tacit convention of writer with 
reader, such expressions then meant exactly nothing at all, 
applied to the case of the reigning sovereign — nothing at all, 
except a courtesy of usage, like your '■ Dear sir," addressed 
to a stranger, addressed perhaps even to a man — if there were 
such a man — whom you dislike. Compare the reverend 
translators' dedication to King James, of the common ver- 
sion of the Bible. 

Quintilian, next after the preceding, interposes, before go- 
ing to satire, a brief reference to elegiac poetry. The inter- 
position, perhaps, was necessary; without it, the association 
of ideas might have seemed too suggestively close between 
satire and Quintilian's extravagant praise of his emperor. 
Of satire, and of Lucilius as first satirist, Quintilian has this 
to say : 

Satire is certainly wholly our own ; and Lucilius, who first obtained 
eminent distinction in it, has still admirers so devoted to him, that t' ey 
do not hesitate to prefer him, not only to all writers in the same kind of 
composition, but to all other poets whatever. For my own part, I dilfer 
from them as much as I do from Horace, who thinks that Lucilius runs 
muddy, and that there is always something in him which you might re- 
move ; for there is in him wonderful learning, spirit, causticity resulting 
<"rom it, and abundance of wit. 



Quintilian. 305 



Lucilius, it seems, was a " cult," in Quintilian's time, as, 
for example, Landor lately was, in this country. 

Horace wins, as satirist, a word of precious approval from 
this supreme court of literary judicature : 

Horace is far more terse and pure in his style, and eminently happy 
in remarking on the characters of mankind. 

Juvenal has to make shift with anonymous and promis- 
cuous praise — praise apparently, at that, postponed to a 
posthumous future : 

There are also excellent writers in that department in our day, whose 
names hereafter will be celebrated. 

Quintilian's sentence on the Greek tragic poets is as just, 
as it is comprehensive and summary: 

Tragedy, ^Eschylus first brought before the world, an author of great 
sublimity and power, and grandiloquent even to a fault, but in many 
parts rough and unpolished ; for which reason the Athenians permitted 
the poets who succeeded him to exhibit his plays, when corrected, in com- 
petition for the prize ; and by that means many obtained the crown. But 
Sophocles and Euripides throw a brighter lustre on that kind of com- 
position, concerning whom, as their styles are different, it is a question 
among many which is the better poet. This point, since it has no rela- 
tion to my present subject, I shall, for my own part, leave undecided. 
But every one must acknowledge that for those who are preparing them- 
selves for pleading Euripides will be by far the most serviceable ; for in 
his style (which those to whom the gravity, and dignified step, and lofty 
tone of Sophocles appear to have an air of greater sublimity, think 
proper to censure), he approaches nearer to the language of oratory : he 
abounds with fine thoughts; in precepts of morality, such as have been 
delivered by the philosophers, he is almost equal to the philosophers 
themselves ; in addresses and replies he is comparable to any of those 
who have been distinguished as eloquent speakers in the forum ; and in 
touching every kind of feeling he has remarkable power, but in exciting 
that of pity holds undisputed pre-eminence. 

There is suggested by Quintilian from among the writers 
of Rome, no offset to these names, that we need here to men- 
tion. Quintilian, however, makes the transition easy from 



306 College Latin Course in English. 

tragedy to comedy. This is done by bringing in Menander, 
the Greek original, as readers will recall, of Plautus and 
Terence, those two chief playwrights in Latin comedy. Me- 
nander, so says Quintilian : 

Menander, as he himself often testifies, admired Euripides greatly, 
and even imitated him, though in a different department of the 
drama ; and Menander alone, in my judgment, would, if diligently read, 
suffice to generate all those qualities in the student of oratory for which 
I am an advocate ; so exactly does he represent all the phases of human 
life ; such is his fertility of invention, and easy grace of expression ; and 
so readily does he adapt himself to all circumstances, persons, and 
feelings. 

Speaking of Latin comedy and of Plautus and Terence, 
Quintilian bates his patriotic breath and holds very modest 
language: 

In comedy we are extremely deficient, though Varro says that the 
muses, in the opinion of yElius Stilo, would, if they had wished to speak 
Latin, have spoken in the language of Plautus; though the ancients extol 
Caecilius ; and though the writings of Terence have been ascribed to 
Scipio Africanus ; and Terence's writings are, indeed, extremely elegant 
in their kind ; yet they would have had still more gracefulness if they 
had been strictly confined to trimeter iambic verse. We scarcely attain 
a faint image of the Greek comedy, so that the Latin language itself 
seems to me not susceptible of that beauty which has hitherto been 
granted to the Attics only, since not even the Greeks themselves have 
attained it in any other dialect of their language. Afranius excels in 
comedies purely Latin ; and I wish that he had not polluted his plays 
with offensive amours, betraying his own character. 

In tribute to Quintilian, it deserves to be said that the 
foregoing reproach of Afranius but fairly suggests the moral 
tone in which this excellent author prevailingly expresses 
himself. For example, Horace, he says, needs expurgation 
when taught to boys. Quintilian, in short, as we have already 
suggested, like nearly every writer of the first class — for 
Quintilian in his own chosen department of literature cannot 
be denied his rank in the first class of writers — was morally 



Quintilian. 307 



sound in his writings. Professor Frieze, accordingly, has 
performed a fruitful service, in editing, as he has done, a 
body of judicious selections from Quintilian, for use in 
school and college. The introduction prefixed by the editor 
is an enlightened and entertaining biographical and literary 
appreciation of Quintilian. 

Our author, as will have been noticed, takes a wide range 
in choice of his subordinate topics. But he never forgets 
his principal aim, that of making and accomplishing the 
orator. It is consistent with this the scope of his book, that 
orators proper should receive from him a larger proportion- 
ate share of attention than other producers of literature. 
We now conclude our epilogue drawn out of Quintilian, 
with some passages from his work in which he characterizes 
and estimates the various orators of Greece and Rome, espe- 
cially those two chief of them, Demosthenes and Cicero; 
more especially still, his own compatriot, and favorite, Cicero. 

The Athenian orators in general Quintilian groups and 
sketches as follows : 

A numerous band of orators follows, since one age produced ten living 
at the same time at Athens ; of whom Demosthenes was by far the 
most eminent, and has been almost the sole model for oratory ; such is 
his energy, so compact is his whole language, so tense, as it were, with 
nerves, so free from any thing superfluous ; and such the general char- 
acter of his eloquence, that we can neither find anything wanting in it, 
nor anything superfluous. ^Eschines is more copious and diffuse in 
style, and, as being less confined in scope, has more appearance of mag- 
nitude, but he has only more flesh and less muscle. Hyperides is ex- 
tremely agreeable and acute, but better qualified, not to say more serv- 
iceable, for causes of minor importance. Lysias, an orator that pre- 
ceded these in time, is refined and elegant, and, if it be enough for an 
orator to inform his hearers, we need not seek any thing more excellent 
than he is ; for there is nothing unmeaning, nothing far-fetched, in his 
sentences ; but he is more like a clear spring than a great river. Isoc- 
rates, in a different style of orator}', is neat and polished, but better 
fitted for the fencing-school than for actual combat ; he assiduously 
courts every beauty of diction, and not without reason, for he had quali- 



308 College Latin Course in English. 

fied himself for lecture-rooms, and not for courts of justice ; he is ready 
in invention, and constantly aiming at embellishment ; and so aareful in 
composition that his care is even censured. 

In nothing, perhaps, is the exquisite balance of judicial 
mind in Quintilian more strikingly evident than in the com- 
parison and contrast drawn by him between Demosthenes 
and Cicero. If he indulges his fondness for Cicero, it shall 
be at no cost of injustice done to Demosthenes. He says : 

But our orators may, above all, set the Latin eloquence on an 
equality with that of Greece ; for I would confidently match Cicero 
against any one of the Greek orators. Nor am I unaware how great an 
opposition I am raising against myself, especially when it is no part of 
my design at present to compare him with Demosthenes, for it is not at 
all necessary, since I think that Demosthenes ought to be read above 
all other orators, or rather learned by heart. Of their great excellences 
I consider that most are similar; their method, their order of partition, 
their manner of preparing the minds of their audience, their mode of 
proof, and, in a word, everything that depends on invention. In their 
style of speaking there is some difference ; Demosthenes is more compact, 
Cicero more verbose ; Demosthenes argues more closely, Cicero with a 
wider sweep ; Demosthenes always attacks with a sharp-pointed weapon, 
Cicero often with a weapon both sharp and weighty; from Demosthenes 
nothing can be taken away, to Cicero nothing can be added ; in the one 
there is more study, in the other more nature. In wit, certainly, and 
pathos, two stimulants of the mind which have great influence in oratory, 
we have the advantage. Perhaps the custom of his country did not al- 
low Demosthenes pathetic perorations ; but, on the other hand, the dif- 
ferent genius of the Latin tongue did not grant to us ihose beauties 
which the Attics so much admire. In the epistolary style, indeed, though 
there are letters written by both, and in that of dialogue, in which De- 
mosthenes wrote nothing, there is no comparison. We must yield the 
superiority, however, on one point, that Demosthenes lived before Cicero, 
and made him, in a great measure, the able orator that he was; for Cic- 
ero appears to me, after he devoted himself wholly to imitate the Greeks, 
to have embodied in his style the energy of Demosthenes, the copiousness 
of Plato, and the sweetness of Isocrates. Nor did he. by zealous effort, 
attain only what was excellent in each of these, but drew most, or rather 
all excellences, from himself, by the felicitous exuberance of his im- 
mortal genius. He does not, as Pindar says, collect rain water, but 



Quintilian. 309 



overflows from a living fountain, having been so endowed at his birth, 
by the special kindness of Providence, that in him eloquence might 
make trial of her whole strength. For who can instruct a judge 
with more exactness, or excite him with more vehemence? What 
orator had ever so pleasing a manner ? The very points which he 
wrests from you by force, you would think that he gained from you by 
entreaty ; and when he carries away the judge by his impetuosity, he 
yet does not seem to be hurried along, but imagines that he is following 
of his own accord. In all that he says, indeed, there is so much author- 
ity, that we are ashamed to dissent from him ; he does not bring to a 
cause the mere zeal of an advocate, but the support of a witness or a 
judge ; and, at the same time, all these excellences, a single one of which 
any other man could scarcely attain with the utmost exertion, flow from 
him without effort ; and that stream of language, than which nothing is 
more pleasing to the ear, carries with it the appearance of the happiest 
facility. It was not without justice, therefore, that he was said by his 
contemporaries to reign supreme in the courts ; and he has gained such 
esteem among his posterity, that Cicero is now less the name of a man 
than that of eloquence itself. To him, therefore, let us look ; let him 
be kept in view as our great example ; and let that student know that 
he has made some progress, to whom Cicero has become an object of 
admiration. 

But Quintilian is not carried away by that veneration of 
his for Cicero; he keeps solidly on his feet. This, the fol- 
lowing lofty passage will show — a passage, at once sobering 
and inspiring, contemplative of that ideal orator imagined 
by Quintilian, which, in Quintilian's opinion, Cicero, though 
an orator so noble, never quite attained to be : 

Though I acknowledge that Cicero stood at the head of eloquence, 
. . . yet, since he did not claim to himself, though he had no mean 
opinion of his merits, the praise of perfection, and since he might cer- 
tainly have spoken better if a longer life had been granted him, and a 
more tranquil season for composition, I may not unreasonably believe 
that the summit of excellence was not attained by him, to which, not- 
withstanding, no man made nearer approaches. . . . Did Marcus An- 
tonius declare that he had seen no man truly eloquent, though to be 
eloquent is much less than to be a perfect orator ; does Cicero himself 
say that he is still seeking for an orator, and merely conceives and 
imagines one ; and shall I fear to say that in that portion of eternity 



310 College Latin Course in English. 

which is yet to come something may arise still more excellent than what 
has yet been seen ? 

In the passage ensuing, Quintilian alludes to criticism, 
current in his day, and current still, on Cicero's style. It 
will be observed that Quintilian — such is his perfect judicial 
temper — while making answer to these strictures on his fa- 
vorite author and orator, will not suffer himself by stress of 
controversy to be urged into any assertion or any denial not 
corrected and qualified by candor : 

But in Cicero we have not merely an Eu-phra'nor, distinguished by 
excellence in several particular departments of art, but one eminent in 
every quality that is commended in any orator whatever. Yet the men 
of his own time presumed to censure him as tumid, Asiatic, redundant, 
too fond of repetition, indulging in tasteless jests, loose in the structure 
of his sentences, tripping in his manner, and (what is surely very far from 
truth) almost too effeminate in his general style for a man. And after 
that he was cut off by the proscription of the triumvirs, those who had 
hated, envied, and rivaled him, and who were anxious to pay their court 
to the rulers of the day, attacked him from all quarters, when he was no 
longer able to reply to them. But the very man who is now regarded by 
some as meagre and dry, appeared to his personal enemies, his con- 
temporaries, censurable only for too flowery a style and too much ex- 
uberance of matter. Both charges are false, but for the latter there is 
the fairest ground. 

The sage and serene Quintilian is stung into stinging im- 
personal sarcasm, as he proceeds : 

But his severest critics were those who desired to be thought imitators 
of the Attic orators. This band of calumniators, as if they had leagued 
themselves in a solemn confederacy, attacked Cicero as though he had 
been quite of another country, neither caring for their customs nor 
bound by their laws ; of which school are our present dry, sapless, and 
frigid orators . . . who, because they cannot endure the brighter lustre 
of Cicero's eloquence, any more than they can look at the sun, shelter 
themselves under the shade of the great name of Attic oratory. 

Out of the comparative narrowness of application to 
Cicero's case in particular, Quintilian's discourse now ex- 



Quintilian. 311 



pands into wide and wise general discussion of the celebrated 
critical distinction between Asiatic and Attic, in literary 
taste and style. This we condense and show to our readers 
— not only for its own intrinsic interest and value, but also 
for the illustrative light that it throws on Quintilian himself 
as a writer on rhetoric. There will be found warmth of 
feeling, as well as wisdom of judgment, displayed by Quin- 
tilian writing here as defender of sound sense in literature : 

The distinction between Attic and Asiatic orators is indeed of great 
antiquity ; the Attics being regarded as compressed and energetic in 
their style, the Asiatics as inflated and deficient in force ; in the Attics 
it was thought that nothing was redundant, in the Asiatics that judg- 
ment and restraint were in a great measure wanting. . . . yEschines.who 
fixed on Rhodes for his place of exile, carried thither the accomplish- 
ments then studied at Athens, which, like certain plants that degenerate 
when they are removed to a foreign climate and soil, formed a union of 
the Attic flavor with that of the country to which they were transplanted. 
The orators of the Rhodian school are accordingly accounted somewhat 
deficient in vigor and spirit, though nevertheless not without force, 
resembling, not pure springs, nor turbid torrents, but calm floods. 

Let no one doubt, then, that of the three styles [Attic, Asiatic, and 
Rhodian or Middle], that of the Attics is by far the best. But though 
there is something common to all that have written in this style, namely, 
a keen and exact judgment, yet there are great varieties in the characters 
of their genius. Those, therefore, appear to me to be very much mis- 
taken, who think that the only Attic orators are such as are simple, 
clear, expressive, restricting themselves, as it were, to a certain frugality 
in the use of their eloquence, and always keeping their hand within their 
cloak. For who shall be named as such an Attic orator? Suppose it 
be Lysias ; for the admirers of that style recognize him as a model of it. 
. . . Was Hy-per'ides Attic ? Doubtless. Yet he studied agreeableness 
of style more than Lysias. I say nothing of many others. . . . What 
was ^Eschines, whom I just now mentioned? Was he not broader, and 
bolder, and loftier in style than they ? What, to come to a conclusion, was 
Demosthenes ? Did he not surpass all those dry and cautious speakers, in 
force, sublimity, animation, polish, and structure of periods ? Does he 
not elevate his style by moral observations ? Does he not delight in 
figures ? Does he not give splendor to his language by metaphors ? 
Does he not attribute, by figurative representations, speech to inanimate 



312 College Latin Course in English. 

objects ? Does not his oath by the defenders of his country, slain at 
Marathon and Salamis, plainly show that Plato was his master ? and 
shall we call Plato an Asiatic, a man comparable in so many respects to 
the bards of old, fired with divine inspiration ? What shall we say of 
Pericles? Shall we pronounce him similar to the unadorned Lysias, 
him whose energy the comic writers, even while they ridicule him, com- 
pare to thunder and lightning from heaven? 

So comes out something of that latent heat in Quintilian, 
for which, unexpectedly finding it in him, we like this critic 
certainly not less. ' "Attic," indeed ! ' in substance he says; 
'must then an orator, to be truly "Attic," resemble that Attic 
soil of which, by an Attic poet, it was wittily remarked, that 
it practiced the honesty of returning in harvest to the hand 
of the husbandman exactly as much grain as it had before 
received from the husbandman's hand in seed ? Would 
Demosthenes, had he acquired certain excellences that he 
lacked, thereby have ceased to be Attic? Or ' — but now 
Quintilian 's own words: 

So, if any one shall add to the excellences which that great orator 
Demosthenes had, those which appear, either naturally or by the law of 
his country, to have been wanting to him, and shall display in himself 
the power of strongly exciting the feelings, shall I hear some critic say, 
Demosthenes never did so ? Or if any periods shall be produced more 
harmonious than his, perhaps none can be, but still if any should, will 
it be said that they are not Attic ? 

With admirable self-recollection — self-recollection admira- 
ble and characteristic — Quintilian suffers his fusile heat of 
contention against his antagonists to decline now into cool, 
calm, clear crystallization of wisdom good for that time and 
good for all time. Here is the final summary sentence — with 
the citation of which, let our gleanings from the field of 
Quintilian be deemed to have been bound up securely into a 
sheaf fitly clasped with a girdle of the golden grain itself: 

TO SPEAK IN THE ATTIC STYLE IS TO SPEAK IN THE 
BEST STYLE, 



APPENDIX 



We count with confidence on having among our readers 
many who will be students as well as readers. Provision 
is made for these. 

As in the " College Greek Course," an index is furnished of 
proper names, with pronunciation marked, and with reference 
given to the pages on which the most important matter con- 
cerning the topics thus indicated will be found. The chiefly 
prominent names are printed in type adapted to exhibit their 
prominence readily to the eye. 

It is suggested to studious readers that they will find it a very 
useful exercise to review their reading with the help of the 
index, by looking up all the passages relating to the different 
principal names successively, and — after this has been done, 
not during the process of doing it — to set down in writing the 
results that are left lodged in the memory. To facilitate the 
accomplishing of this purpose in a way to make a result- 
ant record convenient to each reader for subsequent preser- 
vation and access, a few blank leaves are bound into the 
volume at the end. It will be well if these leaves be filled up, 
not simply with things remembered from the printed pages 
preceding, but with things brought from other sources, and 
especially with things thought out by the individual reader 
for himself. It is recommended that care be exercised be- 
forehand to divide up the blank space provided, in some just 
proportion, among the various names to be entered. We 
know from our own private correspondence that some enter- 
prising readers of the previous volumes have found no little 
14 



314 College Latin Course in English. 

satisfaction in the part they have taken in thus themselves 
helping make the books that they use. Books into which 
you have in some sense put yourself, become thereby precious 
to you as the years go by. 

In addition to the index of names, we make another pro- 
vision to aid students in the business of review and self-in- 
spection. A list of questions and topics is given, germane 
to the subjects discussed in the present series of volumes, to 
serve as stimulants to recollection, to reflection, and to 
further investigation. 

First, the text in the body of this volume is supplemented 
with some very brief notice of a few minor names in Roman 
literature, additional to those of principal importance which 
it was necessary to treat more fully. 

A Roman poet, associated by the character of his composi-. 
tion, and mnemonically by jingle of name, with Catullus, 
was Tibullus. Tibullus was the earliest of the Augustan 
authors whom we know by their works. Catullus preceded 
him one generation. Tibullus was a lackadaisical young 
gentleman, who lavished his love about where it was not 
wanted, and sentimentally sang his distresses in verse. Prac- 
tically, he sought consolation by going each time to a fresh 
mistress. He wrote elegantly and lasciviously; the author 
was such as the man. He constitutes a kind of link in litera- 
ture between Catullus and Ovid. Quintilian puts him at 
the head of Roman elegiasts, so-called. 

Propertius was a poet contemporary with Tibullus and 
with Horace. Quintilian notes it, that in his own day there 
were some who preferred Propertius to Tibullus. Propertius, 
too, was a writer of love-poems — if poems of lust, rather than 
poems of love, such erotic effusions as those of Propertius 
and his fellows were not fitlier called. His works came near 



Appendix. 315 



being lost in the Middle Ages. One copy alone, found in an 
Italian wine-cellar, saved him from oblivion — oblivion that 
would, almost we might say, have been both friendly to him 
and fortunate for us. Still Propertius was not without real 
genius. 

Silius Italicus we name simply to dismiss him as hardly 
worth naming. The poem by which he has sentenced him- 
self to an immortality of critical contempt, is a long epic on 
the Second Punic War. There was little in the man to win 
merciful judgment for the poet. He lived in the first Chris- 
tian century. 

Persius has enjoyed a prodigious reputation on the strength 
of six satires, produced by him while a very young man. If 
we should say that these poems are far from deserving their 
fame, we should only be saying what excellent critics before 
us have freely said many times. Persius has been kept up, 
like a shuttlecock between battledore and battledore, by the 
opposite blows of mutually adverse criticism concerning him. 
We can at least praise the man, whatever we think of the 
satirist. Persius was a friend of Thrasea, that favorite of 
Tacitus — and deservedly, for, till his early death, he kept a 
stainless chastity amid the general profligacy of Nero's evil 
time. We could show nothing of his satires that would 
greatly interest our readers. Our readers would, however, 
be greatly interested in studying the introduction by Profess- 
or Gildersleeve to his edition of the Latin text of Persius — 
certainly one of the raciest and most stimulating pieces of 
editorial writing that we have ever encountered in the litera- 
ture of classical scholarship. Persius is sometimes, but 
seldom, read in college. 

Statius came later. He flourished in the reign of Domi- 
tian. Statius was improvisator as well as poet. He shone 



316 College Latin Course in English. 

on public occasions of reading his own poetry aloud. Such 
practice on his part helped give a rhetorical, epigrammatic, 
ambitious turn to the poem which, retiring into the coun- 
try for that purpose, he spent twelve years in writing — " The 
The'ba-id," so-called, his master-piece, an epic in twelve 
*>ooks, on an incident in the legendary history of Thebes. 
This holds its traditional place among the second-class epics 
sf literature. Statins was a follower of Lucan, as Lucan was 
a follower of Virgil, and as Virgil was a follower of Homer. 
Virgil was artificial as compared with Homer; Lucan was 
artificial as compared with Virgil ; Statius was artificial as 
compared with Lucan. 

Martial was a contemporary of Statius. He was an epi- 
grammatist in verse. He studied point to the sacrifice of al- 
most every thing but point. Libidinousness, however, he did 
not have to sacrifice, as also libidinousness he did not have 
to study ; that came naturally to him. "A man of talent, 
acuteness, and spirit, with plenty of wit and gall, and as sin- 
cere as he was witty," is Pliny's characterization and tribute. 
Martial recognizes and delineates, without disapproval, the 
same ethical features of Roman society that excited to such 
passion of rhetorical scorn the indignant genius of his contem- 
porary Juvenal. Juvenal's frightful representations of Rome 
are thus curiously confirmed by Martial as substantially 
true. 

Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, and Martial, these four by 
eminence, were poets that, notwithstanding their wit, their 
genius, and their art, the world of letters might lose without 
loss. They had better never have written. From Martial, the 
most fecund producer among them, a comparatively innocent 
trifle given as translated by Mr. Simcox may serve, very 
inadequately, to show the moral tone and the literary style of 
this writer — favorite of so many Latinists that love smartness 



Appendix. 317 



and do not mind if the smartness be made seemingly smarter 
with broad, or with equivocal, leer: 

The things which make life pretty happy, my own dear Martial [name- 
sake to the poet], are these, a property which was left you without youi 
working for it, land that pays for cultivation, a hot dinner every day, never 
a lawsuit, very seldom a dress-suit, a quiet mind, bodily health, and gen- 
tlemanly vigor, frankness and prudence, equal friendships, easy society, a 
simple table, a wet night to wash out cares, but not quite a tipsy one, a 
wife who is faithful and not strait-laced, sound sleep to shorten the dark- 
ness ; to wish to be what you are and nothing else in the world ; not to 
be afraid of your last day, nor to long for it. 

Sulpicia is the name of the solitary female poet in Roman 
literature of whom any fragment remains. A so-called 
satire of hers is occasionally bound up together with the 
satires of Juvenal. Sulpicia was a lady of rank, but she too 
was flagrantly wanton in her verse. She was of Martial's 
time. 

Of Seneca, as essayist, we present here a specimen bit 
that will be acknowledged not to lack a certain interest. 
This morsel we take from the text of Mr. Simcox's " His- 
tory of Latin Literature." Our readers must not imagine 
that they lose any thing very important in losing the proper 
connection of the complete original discourse. Caligula's 
imperial sentence on Seneca as writer, is condensed into 
a pregnant untranslatable phrase composed of three words, 
H arena sine calce, " Sand without lime," that is, particles pos- 
sessing no mutual cohesion, sand not converted into mortar. 
Such incoherency is the character of Seneca's ambitious sen- 
tentiousness in style. 

In his essay on " Tranquillity of Mind," Seneca says : 

If he [any private Roman citizen] is forced into the rear rank, still 
there he can shout and exhort and set a soldier's example and show a 
soldier's spirit. Whatever happens, you ought to keep your stand, help 
with yjur war-cry ; if your mouth is stopped, keep your stand and help 



3i« 



College Latin Course i?i English. 



with your silence. A good citizen always does good service : to see him, 
to hear him, does good ; his look and gesture, his silent steadfastness, 
his very going by, does good. The example of one who keeps quiet 
well has its use. 

That, surely, is sound and good. Would you not almost 
think it was American Emerson speaking ? 

Of the orator Hortensius — a figure, literary and social, so 
considerable as he was in his day — it seems a pity that noth- 
ing is left to show, in offset to the ample remains of his gen- 
erous and more industrious friend and rival Cicero. In the 
default of any mental image of the man, it may be accepted 
by some for a slight compensation if a hint is afforded, such 
as a picture may yield, of his personal presence: 




HORTENSIUS. 



Appendix. 319 



Questions and Topics. 

1. Compare the Greek with the Roman national charac- 
ter, as these are exhibited respectively in the two national 
literatures. 



2. Account for it that a great ruling race like the Ro- 
man should have been contented to follow so closely foreign 
originals in its literature and its art. 



3. What was it in the national genius that kept Greece 
from seeking to found empire by conquest beyond the bounds 
of Hellas itself? 



4. Was Alexander the Great an exception in this respect 
among Greeks ; or did his foreign conquering spirit show 
him to have been not properly Greek ? 



5. Distinguish the properly Greek from the properly not- 
Greek elements in Alexander's character. 



6. Is there a reciprocal influence exchanged between a 
nation's literature and that nation's character and life? If 
so, state the law governing such influence. 



7. Which national genius, the Greek or the Roman, was 
more self-conscious in its literature ? 



320 College Latin Course in English. 

8. Which national genius was more sound and genuine in 
its literary self-consciousness ? 



9. How far is literary art possible without literary self- 
consciousness on the part of the artist ? 



10. What was the influence on literature of the imperial 
system founded by Caesar ? 



11. Define the limits within which wealth in a nation 
fosters in that nation the development of literature. 



12. Define civilization. 



13. To which influence, that of Greece or that of Rome, is 
Christian civilization more deeply indebted ? 



14. What parts respectively do literature and science play 
in the advancement of civilization ? 



15. Would it be true to say that science exerts its civiliz- 
ing influence chiefly by dealing with the relations between 
man and nature, whereas literature exerts its civilizing in- 
fluence chiefly by dealing with the relations between man 
and man? 



Appendix. 321 



16. If so, which civilizing influence, that of science, or that 
of literature, should be more direct and more powerful? 

17. Compare Demosthenes and Cicero, the men. 

18. Compare Demosthenes and Cicero, the statesmen. 

19. Compare Demosthenes and Cicero, the orators. 



20. Both Demosthenes and Cicero struggled against po- 
litical tendencies that were destined to prevail; were they 
unwise in doing this? 



21. The Roman literary influence was dominant in»English 
literature a hundred and fifty years ago — the Greek is dom- 
inant now ; is it likely that there will, by and by, be a return 
to the former fashion ? 



22. To what extent do the examples supplied by Greece 
and Rome give countenance to the theory that the literature 
of a people receives its type from geographic and climatic 
influences? 



23. To what extent does satire exert a practical correcting 
and reforming influence on morals and manners ? 



24. Distinguish between the satire and the lampoon. 
14* 



College Latin Course i?i E?iglish. 



25. Explain why the novel should not have had a freer and 
fuller development in the ancient Greek and Roman world. 



26. Compare with one another Thucydides, Sallust, Tacitus. 



27. What distinguishes the philosophical from the merely' 
narrative historian ? 



28. What different qualifications are required in the histo- 
rian who writes at second-hand from those required in the 
historian writing from personal knowledge ? 



29. What support does the example of Greek tragedy lend 
to the idea that the dramatist must write without ethical 
purpose, merely to represent human character and life ? 



30. For the practical conduct of life, which study is likely 
to be more useful to the average man or woman, the study of 
the classics or the study of physics ? Why ? 



31. In which world would you choose, on the whole, to 
have had cast your lot in life, the world of ancient Athens or 
the world of ancient Rome ? 



32. Whence came the influence that makes Christian civili- 
zation other and better than the civilization of Athens, and 
of Rome — was it from heaven or of men ? 



INDEX. 



Ac'te, 85, 86. 

Ad'di-son, Joseph (1672-1719), 272. 

iE-ne'id, 302. 

^Es'chi-nes (B. C. 389-314), 307, 311. 

./Es'chi-nus, 144-153. 

yEs'chy-ius (B. C. 5 2 5"45 6 )> 3°5- 

A-fra'ni-us, 306. 

A-gric'o-la (37-93), 65. 

A-grip'pa, Marcus, 97, 98. 

A-GHIP-PI'NA (i5?-6o), 77-82, 86-92, 

100. 
Al-cas'us (fl. B. C. 611?), 189, 303. 
Al-ci'des, 206. 
Al-ex-an'der the Great (B. C. 356-323), 26, 

57, 212, 224, 247. 
Alps, 26, 27, 30, 31, 32, 225. 
Am-pe-lis'ca, 131, 141. 
An-i-ce'tus, 87, 89, 90, 99, 100. 
Ann Arbor, 126, 143, 144. 
An-ti'o-chus (B. C. 237-187), 60, 72. 
An-tip / a-ter, 268, 269. 
An-ti-um, 34, 86, 87, 102, 103, 105. 
An-to'ni-us (Antony), Marcus (B. C. 83- 

30K 72, 73, 223, 239, 240. 
A-pel'les (fl. 330 B. C.), 212. 
Aph'ro-di'te, 20a 
A'pis, 70. 
A-ra'uis, 297. 

Ar-chil'o-chus (B. C. 7i4?-676), 178. 
Arc-tu'-rus, 127-8. 
A-ris-ti'des (B. C. — 468?), 267. 
A-ris-toph'a-nes (B. C. 444?-38o?), 123, 

261. 
Ar'is-tot'le (B. C. 384-322), 247, 257, 258, 

293; 2 97> 30L 
Ar-pi'num, 230. 
Ar'ri-a, 121. 

Ars Po-et'i-ca (Art of Poetry), 204. 
Ath'ens, no, 128, 154, 172, 178, 211, 212, 

223, 233, 241, 250, 258, 261, 269, 311, 
A-til'i-us, Lu'ci-us, 54. 
Atterbury, Bishop (1662-1732), 108, 109. 
AT'TI-Ci T S, Titus Pomponius (B. C. 109- 

32), 233, 242, 243, 245, 248, 254. 
Au'fi-dus, 49, 50, 194. 
AU-GUS'TCS, Caesar (63 B. C.-14 A. D.), 

64< 77. 93, 97, 98, 175, 177, *7 8 i l8 3, 200, 

201, 207, 241. 
Augustus,. Epistle to, 205, 206. 
Aus'ter, 195. 
Australia, 218. 

Baal, 169. 
Bai'ae, 87. 



Bal'bus, 244. 

Bar-gi-o'ras, John, 73. 

Bengal (Ben-gawP), 193- 

Bernini, " The Cavalier Bernini," Italian 

artist (1598-1680), 213. 
Bi-bac'u-lus, Furius, 54. 
Bi-thyn'i-a, 61, 276. 
Bo-a-di-ce'-a (Bou-di-ce-a), ( — 62), 95. 
Boc-cho'ris, 60. 
Britain, 67, 206. 
Bri-tan'ni-cus, 80, 81, 82, 87. 
Brothers, The, 143. 
Brodribb (Church and), 48. 
Brun-du'si-um, 238. 
Brutus, Marcus (B. C. 85-42), 266. 
Bryant, William Cullen (1794-1878), 231. 
Burke, Edmund (1729 or 1730-1797), 272. 
Bur-rus, A-fra'ni-us, 77, 79, 81, 82, 89, 91, 

93, 94, 96. 
Burns (1759-1796), 202. 
Byron, Lord (1788-1824), 154, 252. 

Ca/diz, 14, 218. 

Cae-cil'i-us, 306. 

Cae-ci'na, Tuscus, 82. 

Cae'li-us, 27. 

Cae'sar, Cai'us (Caligula), (12-41), 77. 

Cae'sar, Clau'di'us (10 B. C.-54 A. D.), 64, 

72, 77, 79, 91, 98, 100. 
Cae'sar, Ju'li-us (B. C. 100-44), 9°i T 55i x 76, 

186, 222, 237, 239, 243, 251, 254, 255, 262, 

264, 266, 274, 300. 
Ca-lig'u-la, Ca'ius Cae'sar, 64, 72, 317. 
Cal-pur'ni-a, 287. 
Ca'ni-us, Cai'us, 270, 27T. 
CAN'IViE, 49, 53, 59, 226. 
Ca'pre-ae, 221. 
Cap'u-a, 34. 
CARTHAGE, 20, 25, 32, 58, 60, 123, 170, 

196. 197, 225. 
Car'tha-lo, 43, 53, 58. 
Cas'sius, Barba, 244. 
Castor and Pollux, 206. 
Cat'i-line, 229, 237. 
Ca'to, Mar'cus, the Elder (B. C. 234-149), 

14, 21, 190, 253, 272, 273. 
Ca'to, Mar'cus, the Younger (B. C. 95-46), 

246. 
Ca-tul'lus (B. C. 87-47), l8 4, 185, 244, 314, 

316. 
Centaurs, 201. 
Cer'vus, 203. 
Ce-the'gus, 229. 
Charles XII. (1682-1718), 2«6. 



3 2 4 



College Latin Course in English. 



Char'mi-des, 134. 




FA'BI-rS, Quintus Maximus (Cunc-ta>- 


Charon, 186. 




tor), (B. C. — 203?), 20, 25, 38, 39-50, 53. 


Chesterfield (Lord), (1694-1773), 223, 242. 


56, 253, 260. 




Childe Harold, 252. 




Fa'bi-us Rus'ti-cus, 81, 82, 86. 




Chi-mae'ra, 201. 




Fe'lix, An-to'ni-us, 72. 




Chlo'e, i y 8. 




Fla-min'i-us, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 50. 




Choate, Rufus (1799-1859), 240. 




Flain'i-ni'nus, 61. 




Choe'ri-lus, 212. 




Fon-tei'us. Cai'us, 85. 




Christus (Jesus), 107. 




Francis, Dr. Philip (died 1773), 179, 


186, 


Church and Brodribb, 48, 276, 282. 




205. 




Cic'e-ro, Mar'cus, 258, 261, 264. 




Frieze, Prof. Henry S. (living), 177, 


180, 


CIC/E-KO, Mar'cus Tul'li-us (B. C. 


106- 


3°7« 




43), 155, 222, 223, 224, 230-274, 277, 


293, 


Froude, James Anthony (living), 247, 248. 


301, 302, 307-310, 318. 




Fus'cus, 278. 




Cic'e-ro, Quin'tus, 254-257. 








Cle-o-pa'tra, 72, 186. 




Ga'des (Cadiz), 14, 227. 




Clive, Lord (1725-1774), 193, 194. 




Gal'ba (B. C— 69 A. D.), 75. 




Clu/si-um, 16. 




Gan'ges, 218. 




Clu'vi-us, 82, 86. 




Garrick, David (1716-1779), 224. 




Collins (living), 16, 235, 236, 238, 255. 




George II. (1683-1760), 205. 




Colman, George (i733?-i794.), 143. 




Ger-man'i-cus (14 B. C.-19 A. D.), 79, 


89. 


Como, Lake, 286. 




Ger-man'i-cus Au-gus'tus (Domitian), 


3°4« 


Conington (Professor), (lately deceased), 


Ge'ta, 147. 




180, 181, 202. 




Gifford, William (1756-11826), 218, 223, 
Gildersleeve, Prof, (living), 315. 


224. 


Congreve, William (1670-1729), 230. 
Cor'bu-lo, 94, 101, 103, 121. 








Gri'pus, 1^6, 142. 




Cor'neille (1606-1684), 211. 




Grac'chi (fl. 2d century, B.C.), 63. 




Cor-ne'li-a (fl. 2d. century B. C), 63. 




Gray, Thomas (1716-1771), 202. 




Cowper, William (1731-1800), 187, 188. 
Cotter's Saturday Night (Burns' s), 202. 




Greece, 59, 125, 154, 155, 160, 170, 210 


< 22 3» 




241, 209, 303, 307, 308. 




Crassus, 222. 








Crce'sus. 229. 




Hallam, Arthur Henry (1811-1833), 179 




Ctes'i-pho, 145. 




Ham-iPcar, 23, 24. 




Cur'ti-us, Mar'cus, 19. 




Hammon, 69, 70. 




Cyn'a-ra, 199. 




HVMSIBAL (B.C., 247-183), 20-62, 

226. 
Hanno, 143. 


224- 


Daem'o-nes, 128-142. 






Dante (1265-1321), 173. 




Has'dru-bal, 23, 24, 43, 51, 52. 




Del'li-us, 186. 




Hastings, Warren (1732-1818), 193, 194. 




De'me-a, 144, 153. 




He'gi-0,145. 




De-me'tri-us, 121. 




Hel-vid'i-us, 121. 




De-moc'ri-tus (B. C. 46o?-36i?), 219. 
DE-MOS'THE-NES (B. C. 38 5 ?- 3 22) 




Henry (King), 96, 206. 




, 26, 


Her-a-clPtus (fl. 500 B. C), 219. 




222, 307,308, 311, 312. 
Dennis, John (1657-1734), 213. 




Her-cu-la'ne-um, 276. 






Her'od, 73. 




De Renim Natura, 156-173. 




He-rod'o-tus (B. C, 484?~42o?), 299. 




Di-og'e-nes of Babylon, 268, 269. 




He'si-od (fl. 800? B. C), 303. 




Dion Cassius (155? — ), 234. 




Hes'per-us, 199. 




Diph'i-lus, 128, 131, 144. 




Hi'e-ro, 49. 




Disraeli (Diz-ra'lee), Isaac (1766-1848), 


i5- 


Hi-e-ro-soPy-ma, 69. 




Do-mi'tian (517-96), 65, 285, 304, 315. 




Hodgson, Francis (1781-1852^, 225. 




Do-mi'tius, A'fer, 298. 




Holmes, Oliver Wendell (living), 188, 


189. 


Dream of Fair Woman (Tennyson's), 1 


86. 


Ho'mer (fl. about icoo B.C.), 228, 240, 


297. 


Dru-siPla, 72. 




298, 299, 302, 303, 316. 




Dryden, John (1631-1700), 210, 211. 




Hor'ace (B. C. 65-8), 173, 214, 303, 306 
Hor'ten'sius, 318. 


314- 


El-e-a'zar, 73, 74. 




Hy-per'i-des, 307, 311. 




E-li'jah, 169. 








Kn'ni-us (B. C. 239?-i6g), 260, 262, 


263, 


Ic'a-rus, 200. 




302. 




I-dae'i, 69. 




F-pich'a-ris, 108. 

KP-I-CU'RUS (B. C. 342-270), 157, i 

F.ssay on Criticism (Pope s), 205. 




I Pi-ad, 298. 




5o. 


In MemOriam (Tennyson's), 172, 170. 






Iph-i-ge-ni'a, 161. 




K.u-phra'nor, 310. 

Fu-rip'i-des (B. C. 480-406), 305. 




Irving, Edward (1792-1834), 234. 






Irving, Washington (1783- 1859), 2 34- 




hu'rus, 192. 




I'sis, 69. 





Index. 



3*5 



I-soc/r*-tes (B. C. 436-338), 308. 
Italy,«<5, 31, 32,48, 50, 56, 57,60, 62,67, 125, 
179, 231, 238, 250. 

Ja'nus, 212. 

Jeans, G. E. (living), 242, 243, 245, 246, 249, 

250, 252, 255. 
Je-rome\ St. (3457-420), 172. 
Je-ru'sa-lem, 68, 71-74. 
Johnson, Dr. Samuel (1709-1784}, 217, 218, 

221-228. 
Jonson, Ben (1574-1637), 199. 
Ju-dae / i, 69. 
Ju'das, 69. 
Ju'li-a, 100. 
Jiyio, 34. 
Ju pi-ter, 26, 34, 55, 62, 69, 102, 110, 121, 169, 

297. 
JU'VE\-AL (fl. 100), 100, 215-231, 282, 

305, 316, 317. 

Kneller, Sir Godfrey, German portrait- 
painter in England (1648-1723), 212. 

La'brax, 130-142. 

La-er'tes, 228. 

Lae'li-us, 273. 

Landor, Walter Savage (1 775-1864), 305. 

Lat-e-ra'nus, 219. 

Laurence, Mr., 183. 

Len'tu-lus, Cne'i-us Cor-ne'li-us, 53. 

Lep'i-dus, 86. 

Li'-ber, Father, 71. 

Lil-y-bse'um, 235. 

LIV'Y (59 B. C.-17 A. D.), 13-63, 64, 66, 68, 

75, 121, 196, 276, 277, 290. 
Lon-din'i-um (London), 94. 
Lon-gi'nus (2i3?-273), 218- 
Lowell, James Russell (living), 157, 283. 
Lu'can (39-65), 292, 316. 
LU-CiL'I-US (B. C. i 4 S?-io 3 ), 215, 245, 

304, 305 
Lu'ci-us, Pau'lus, 253. 
LU-CKE'Tl-US (Titus Lucretius Cams), 

39, 154-173^ 302. 
Luther, Martin (1483-1546), 257. 
Lyd'i-a, 198. 
Lyd'i-at, Thomas (1572-1646), famous En- 

.glish scholar and philosopher, imprisoned 

for debt, but when dead honored with a 

monument, 224. 
Lys'i-as (B. C. 458-378), 3°7, 3 11 , 312. 
Ly-sip'pus, 212. 
Lytton, Sir E. Bulv/er (1805-1873), 180. 

Macaulay (Lord), 16, 66, 103, 185, 223, 226. 

Ma'cer, 302. 

N*.CE'.\AS, Cai'us (70? B. C.-8 A. D), 

97, 98, 105, 175, 177, 178, 194. 
Ma'go, 51. 
Ma-har'bal, 51, 54. 

Mallock, W. H. (living), 159, 16b, 162, 170. 
Ma-mur'ra, 244. 
Man-ci'nus, 42, 43. 
Mar'a-thon, 312. 
Mar-cel'lus, Cai'us, 249. 



Mar-cel'lus, Mar'cus, 248-250, 254. 

Marie Antoinette (1755-1793), 99. 

Ma'ri-us, Cai'us (B. C. 157-86), 15, 229 

Marlborough (1650-1722), 228. 

Mars (and Mavors), 34, 158, 200. 

Martial (43-104), 316, 317. 

Martin, Theodore (living), 179-203 fre- 
quently. 

Mather, Cotton (1663-1728), 181. 

Maurice, F. D. (1805-1872), 184. 

Meg'a-ra, 251. 

Melbourne, University of, 218. 

Melnioth, William, 252. 

Mel-pom'e-ne, 195. 

Mem'mi-us, 101, 158, 166, 167. 

Menander (B. C. 342-291), 123-125, 131, 154, 
306. 

Merivale (Dean), (living). 283, 285. 

Me-tel'lus, Lucius Cse-cil'i-us, 55. 

Michigan, University of, 126, 177. 

Micio, 144-153. 

Middleton (1683-1750), 245, 246. 

Milton (1608-1674), 156, 173, 181-184, 203. 

Minerva, 34, 87, 92. 

Mi-nu'ci-us, Marcus Rufus, 40, 49, 54. 

Mi-se'num, 87, 90, 277. 

Mith-ri-da'tes (B. C. i32?-63), 228, 237. 

Mit-y-le'ne, 07. 

Mommsen, Theodor (living), 57, 60, 62, 63. 

Mon-ta'nus, Julius, 83 

Mo'y-ses (Moses), 69, 70. 

Mu'ci-us, 16. 

Munro (lately deceased), 157, 1-8, 165, 167. 

Naples, 49, 277. 

Nassau (William III. of Eng.), (1650-1702), 

213. 
Ne-ap'o-lis (Naples), 91, 104. 
iVE'RO (37-68), 64-67, 76-121. 
Nes'tor, 228. 

OC-TA'VI-A, 78, 81, 85, 99, 100. 

O-dys'seus, 240. 
O-lym'pus, 170. 
Or'cus, 20T. 
O-ri'on, 190. 
Os'ti-a, 106. 
O'tho, 84, 88. 

Otway, Thomas, dramatist (1651-1685), 211. 
Ov'id (43 B. C.-18 A. D.), 194, 228, 238, 302, 
3i4. 

Pa-lses'tra, 130-142. 

Pal'las Ath-e'ne, 86, 240. 

Pam'phi-la, 145. 

Pa-nae'ti-us, 263. 

Pa-pir'i-us, Mar'cus, 18. 

Pa-ta'vi-um (Padua), 14. 

Pa-tro'clus, 298. 

Paris, 81. 

Paul (the apostle), T70, 2^4, 261, 266. 

Pau'lus, Lu'ci-us ^E-mil'i-us (Max'i-mus), 

(B. C. 23o?-i6o), 49, 50-53, 199. 
Peabou\ George, the philanthropist (1795- 

1869), 286, 287. 
Peabody, Dr. A. P. (living), 242. 



326 



College Lati?L Course in English. 



Pe-li'des, 183. 


Sar-dan-a-pa'lus (fl. 900? B. C), 230. 




Pe'li-as, 273. 


Sat-ur-na'li-a, 243, 244. 




Pe'leus, 228. 


Scaev'o-la, 17. 




Pe'lops, 183, igo. 


Saul of Tarsus, 291. 




Per'i-cles, 300, 312. 


Sce-par'nio, 129-134. 

SCIP'I-O, Africanus Major (B. C. 




Per'si-us (34-62), 215, 315. 


235?- 


Pierce, Captain Henry H., 180. 


184?), 26, 27, 54,55, 60-63, 83, 264 


265, 


Pin'dar (B. C- 522?-44o?), 200, 303. 


273, 306. 




Pi'so, Cai'us, in. 


Scip'i-o, Africanus Minor (B. C. 185 ?- 


-129), 


Pi'so, Lu'ci-us, 249 


123, 143. 




Pisos, The, 204, 205. 


Scip'i-o, Lucius, 62, 63. 




Philip (of Macedon), (B. C. 382-336), 212. 


Scott, Sir Walter (1771-1832), 179. 




Phi-lip'pi, 176. 


Se-ja'nus, 220-222. 




Philips, Ambrose, dramatist and poet (1671 ?- 


Sellar, W. Y. (living), 169. 




1749), 214. 


Se-leu'cus, singer, 227. 




Phi'lus, Pub'li-us Fu'n-us, 55. 


Sem-pro'ni-us, 41, 50. 

SEN'E-CA, AN-tiME'US ( 5 ?B. C.- 




Pi-la'tus (Pilate), Pon'ti-us, 107. 


65 A. 


Pi-rae'us, 250, 251. 


D.), 14, 77-79, 82, 86, 89, 91-110, 219, 


292- 


Pla'to (B. C. 42g?-348?), 241, 261, 266, 272, 


294, 317 




301, 308, 312. 
PLAU'TUS, Ti'tus Mac'ci-us (B. C.254?- 


Se-re'nus, An-nae'us, 78. 




Ser-to'ri-us, 208. 




184), 81, 82, 122-143, 260, 306. 


Settle, Elkanah (1648-1723), English author, 


Ples-i-dip'pus, 128, 129. 


once famous, 213. 




Plin'y, the Elder (23-79), 275. 


Ser-vil'i-us, Ge-min'i-us, 51. 




PLIN'Y, the Younger (6i?-ii 5 ?), 64, 82, 


Ser-vil'i-us, Cne'i-us, 54. 




231, 239, 274-291, 300. 


Shakespeare (1564-1616), 211. 




Plu'tarch (49?-i2o?), 208. 


Shedd, Dr. W. G. T. (living), 297. 




Pce'nu-lus, 142. 


Shelley (1792-1822), 288. 




Pol'li-o, Julius, 80. 


Shore, Mr., 103. 




Po-lyb'ius ( B. C. 204 ?-i22 ?), 32, 33. 


Si-cam'bri-ans, 201. 




Pom-pe'i-i (-pe / yi), 102, 276. 


Sil'i-us I-tal'i-cus (25-101), 315. 




POM'PE Y (Cne'ius Pom-pei'us) (B.C. 106- 


Simcox, G. A. (living), 316, 317. 




48), 72, 73, 127, 222, 229, 233, 237, 239. 


Si-mon'i-des (B. C. 556^-467), 303. 




Pom-po'ni-us, Mar'cus, 38. 


Skinner, Cyriack, 183. 




Pope, Alexander (1688-1744), 206-213. 


Smart, Christopher (1722-1770), 180, 


206, 


POP-P/E'A, 84, 85, 99-102. 


212. 




Por'se-na (Por-sen'na), 16. 


Soc'ra-tes (B. C. 470 ?~399), 109. 




Pos-tu'mi-us, Publius, 250. 


Sol'o-mon, 293. 




Princess, The (Tennyson's), 224. 


So'lon (B. C. 6 3 8?- 55 8?), 229. 




Prog'ne, 228. 


Soph / o-cles (B. C. 495 ?~4o6 ?) 305. 




Pri'am, 228, 298. 


Sos'tra-ta, 145. 




Pro-me'theus, 190. 


Spu-rin'na, Ves-tri'ci-us, 283, 284. 




Pro-per'ti-us (B. C. 51-17?), 314, 316. 


Sta-ti-us, An-nae'us (61-98?), no, 315 




Pros'er-pine, 189. 


Sti'lo, yE'li-us, 306. 




Pru'si-as, 61. 


Stuart, Prof. Moses (1780-1852), 195. 




Ptol'e-mo-cra'tia, 133. 


Su'bri-us, Fla'vus, no. 




Pul-tow'a, 226. 


Sul'la (Sylla), 15. _ 




Pu-te'o-li, 235, 244. 


Sul-pi'ci-us, Ser'vi-us Ru'fus, 249-252. 




Pyr'-en-ees, 225. 


Sul-pic'ia, 317. 




Py-thag'o-ras (B. C 58o?~5oo?), 104. 


Syn-ap-o-thnes-con'tes (Greek participle, 


Pyth'i-us, 270, 271. 


" Mated in Death "), 144. 
Sy'rus,. 147-154. 




Quarles, Francis, poet (1592-1644), 213. 


Swift (Dean), (1667-1745), 228. 




Quincy, Josiah (1772-1864), 283. 






Quinc-til'i-us, 185. 


TAC'I-TUS, Caius Cornelius (55 ?-i 


18?), 


QUIIVTILIAIV (Marcus Fabius Quin'til-i- 


33, 49, 64-121, 215, 275, 276, 283-287, 


292, 


a'nus) (42?-n8?), 275, 291-312, 314. 


293^ 299, 300, 315. 
Ta-ren'tum, 198. 




Racine (1639-1699), 211. 


Tennyson, Alfred (living), 95, 172, 179 


184, 


Reg'u-lus (B. C. d. 250?), 101, 196. 


186, 201. 




ROiMK, frequently throughout. 


TER/ENCE (Te-ren'ti-us Pub'li-us A'fer). 


Rom'u-lus, 190, 206. 


(B.C. i93?-i59?), 122-154, 3°6- 




Rudens, 127. 


Te-ren'tia, 233, 734. 
Te-ren'ti-us, Cai'us, 56. 




Sallust (B. C. 86-34), 299. 

Sap'pho (fl. 600 ? B. C), 188, 200, 303. 


Than-a-top'sis, 231. 




The'ba-id, The, 316. 





Index. 



327 



The-mis'to-cles (B. C. 5^-449 ?), 264, 267. 

The-oc'ri-tus (fl. 270?), 303. 

Thral*, Mrs., 224. 

Thra-se'a Psetus, 92. 101, 103, 121, 315. 

THRA-SY-ME'i\U8 (Tra-su-men'nus), 

33, 35, 38, 39, 5i, 56, 58. 
Thu-cyd'i-des (B. C. 471 ?-4<x> ?), 22, 66, 

172, 209. 
Ti-be'ri-us (Caesar) (42 B. C.-37 A. D.), 64, 

72, 77, 100, 107, 220. 
Ti-bul'lus (B. C. 657-19), 314, 316. 
Ti-gel-li'nus, 104, 106. 
Ti-tho'nus, 192, 194. 
Ti-tus (40-81), 65, 68, 72-75. 
Town and Country Mouse, 202-204. 
Tra-cha'li-o, 134-139. 
r j RA'JAN (52-117), 65, 216, 275, 276, 288, 

280, 290, 291. 
Trollope, Anthony (1815-1882), 247. 
Troy, 106, 223. 
Tus'cu-lum, 86, 241. 
Tul'lia, 243, 250. 
Tyler, Moses Coit (living), 181. 

U-lys'ses, 183, 227. 

Wri-us, 21T. 
Var'ro, 49-51. 
Vat'i-can, 93. 



Ve'nus, 129, 131, 132, 157, 199, 200, 229. 

Ver-gin'i-us (or Virginius), Rufus, 282, 283. 

Ver'res, 236. 

Ves-pa'sian (9-79), 65, 74, 75. 

Ve-su'vi-us, 275, 277. 

Vip-sta'nus, Cai'us, 85. 

VIRGIL (P. Virgilius Maro) (B. C. 70-19), 

14, 169, 173, 178-180, 184, 185, 212, 298, 302, 

303, 316. 
Vir'ro, 282. 
Vi-tel'li-us, 98. 
Vol-ca'tius, 249. 
Vo/taire (1694-1778), 155. 
Vo-lu'sius, Proc'u-lus, 108. 
Vo-lu'sius, Quin'-tus, 83, 98. 

Washington University (St. Louis), 126-7. 

Watson, J. S., 242, 294. 

Webster, Daniel (1782-1852), 195, 272. 

Wellington, Duke of (1769-1852), 103. 

Westminster School, 126. 

Wise, Rev. John, t8i. 

Wolsey (Cardinal) (1471-1530), 96, 221. 

Wordsworth, William (1770-1850), 179, 191, 

Xen'-o-phon (B. C. 445 ?~355 ?), 32, 300. 
Xerx'es (B. C. d. 465), 223. 

Za-rna, 60, 62, 225. 



THE END 



AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES 



COMPRISING 



* 



* * 



PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH 
PREPARATORY LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH 
*** COLLEGE GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH 
**** COLLEGE LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH 



BY WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON. 



OPINIONS. 



Professor HENRY F. BURTON, Ph.D., head of the Department of Latin 
in the University of Rochester, says [of the " Preparatory Latin Course "] : 

You have certainly made an exceedingly readable book. The familiar 
gossippy style which you adopt, and the numberless little digressions and 
allusions and quotations by which you enliven the natural dryness of the 
subject, cannot fail to fix the attention of both youthful and adult readers. I 
am sure, too, that the beginner in Latin will get from the book a large 
amount of information upon the authors he reads which no other work, and 
perhaps no teacher, would give him, and what is more, that it will help 
greatly to give life and reality to his early reading. ... As one interested 
in the advancement of Latin studies, I thank you. 

Professor W. S. TYLER, LL.D., head of the Department of Greek in 
Amherst College, says : 

Professor Wilkinson has executed with sound judgment, much learning, 
and good taste the difficult task of giving Preparatory Greek and Latin 
Courses in English to those who are unable to obtain a college education. 
The author has shown his good sense and his own just appreciation of clas- 
sical studies by not professing to make classical scholars, but only to impart 
such a knowledge of Greek and Latin literature as can be obtained without 

I 



After-School Series. 



knowing the Greek and Latin languages. The public will look with interest 
for the third and fourth volumes in the series, which are to contain a similar 
outliue of College Greek and College Latin for English readers. 

Miss FRANCES E. LORD, head of the Department of Latin in Welles- 
ley College, says : 

Prof. Wilkinson has certainly succeeded in giving the English reader of 
the Latin Classics a volume of delightful entertainment and much valuable 
information. Great taste and judgment have been shown in the selections 
and in the choice of the translators, while the running commentary upon 
these, at once so lively and so keen in its analysis of characters and styles, 
will prove very attractive to the youthful student. 

Professor CHARLES D. MORRIS, LL.D., of Johns Hopkins University, 
says [of the " Preparatory Greek"] : 

I think that the book is as a whole well done, and that it will be read 
with interest and profit, not only by persons who have no other knowledge 
of the subject-matter, but also by those who may wish to revive in an easy 
way knowledge which was once familiar, but has been allowed to drop 
more or less out of remembrance. 

Rev. HOWARD CROSBY, D.D., LL.D., late Chancellor of the University 

of the City of New York, says [of the " Greek " volumes] : 

I know no Sanscrit. If a Sanscrit scholar should give me in English a 
clear view of the Sanscrit literature in its style and spirit, so that 1 could be 
familiar with it in all its relations (saving the actual acquaintance with the 
language), I should be greatly benefited and delighted. It is just this 
grand help that Professor Wilkinson has given to the enlightened reader 
who does not happen to know the Greek language, and w r ho has not time to 
acquire it. His il Greek Course " is clear, attractive, and judicious in its 
treatment of the subject, and fills a valuable place in our literature. 

Professor HENRY DRISLER, LL.D., head of the .Department of Greek in 
Columbia College, and American Editor of Liddell & Scott's Greek Lex- 
icon, says : 

I concur iu the main in Dr. Crosby's commendation of Professor Wilkin- 
son's " Greek Course." 

Professor A. C. KENDRICK, D.D., LL.D., head of the Department of Greek 
in the University of Rochester, says : 

The plan of the book is quite unique, yet certainly adapted to the wants 
of a large and increasing class of young persons in our country. Its exe- 
cution seems to me very felicitous ; it is marked by the taste and scholar- 
ship which were to be expected from its accomplished author. I sincerely 



After-School Series. 



hope, and I can scarcely doubt, that it will prove of benefit to a wide 
circle, both as a substitute for, and as an aid to, the ordinary preparatory 
course in Greek. 

Professor JAMES R. BOISE, LL.D., formerly head of the Department oi 
Greek in the University of Michigan, says : 

The idea of the work is original, and the execution, like every thing 
which Professor Wilkinson undertakes, is excellent. The book must prove, 
in more ways than I can enumerate, of great value to the young studen> 

Again [of the Preparatory Latin] : 

I shall lose no opportunity to recommend it. 

Professor LEWIS R. PACKARD, LL.D., late head of the Department of 
Greek in Yale College, says : 

I think the book is well adapted to accomplish the end at which it aims. 
While I do not wholly agree with all the author's views, I think he has 
succeeded in conveying correct impressions on the subjects he treats, es- 
pecially in matters where incorrect impressions are too often current. I 
should say the book would be useful to a large class of people. 

Professor MARTIN L. D'OOGE, LL.D., head of the Department of Greek 
in the University of Michigan, says : 

The author, it will be observed, guards his statement from the erro- 
neous view that his or any similar effort is or can be an equivalent for the 
training of the mind, and the know^dge of the Luin and Greek literatures, 
to be gained by pursuing a college course ; nor does the book anywhere 
convey any such false impression. . . . Professor Wilkinson gives the 
readers of his book a fair and interesting view of the Greek people, and of 
some of their great writers, and incidentally furnishes a good deal of lit- 
erary criticism and information. . . . His account of the subject-matter of 
the Anabasis is especially clear and satisfactory. The style is throughout 
bright and readable. The author evidently hopes to inspire in his readers 
sufficient interest to lead them to read and study Greek life and letters after 
they shall have finished his introductory course. 

Professor W. W. GOODWIN, LL.D., head of the Department of Greek 
in Harvard College, authorizes us 

To repeat his already expressed " high opinion of the preparatory works " 
of this series, and to anticipate his equally cordial approval of and interest 
in the whole as completed. 

Professor E. S. SHUMWAY, Ph.D., head of the Department of Latin in 
Rutgers College, says : 

I wish that I could induce every parent in the land to put that book into 
his child's hands . . . An invaluable service to the cause of classical culture. 

3 



After-School Series. 



A second and third reading only confirms my judgment, and adds to the 
wish that my early Greek teacher had possessed such an aid. 

JOSEPH CUMMINGS, D.D., President of the North-western University, 
(Evanston, 111.,) says : 

I highly recommend it. 

S. C. BAETLETT, D.D., President of Dartmouth College, says : 

It seems to mo a valuable work, highly useful and instructive to a large 
class of thoughtful persons who cannot have access to the originals, and 
calculated to stimulate and expand the views of those who can. 

NOAH PORTEB, D.D., LL.D., President of Yale College, says : 

I have examined with some care the volume by Professor W. C. Wilkin- 
son, entitled " Preparatory Greek Course in English," and I think it a val- 
uable addition to tlie abundant apparatus which is now furnished to the 
young student of the one language of which no aspirant for complete cult- 
ure can contentedly remain in ignorance. 

JAMES B. ANGELL, LL.D., President of the University of Michigan, 
says: 

The difficulty of bringing one, who does not read the language in which 
a literature is written, into close and appreciative and vital contact with the 
literature is very great, too great to be entirely overcome. But you have 
done more than I should have thought possible to overcome it. I have 
found myself thoroughly interested from the beginning to the end of your 
book. It seems to me that most readers must find themselves interested in 
the same manner. And if they are interested they must be profited. 

ALVAH HOVEY, D.D., President of Newton Theological Institution, 
says: 

In these latter days I do not often read a volume through from begin- 
ning to end, without omitting a chapter, paragraph, or sentence. But I 
have read in this way your "Preparatory Greek Course," simply because it 
is so instructive and captivating a volume that I could not persuade myself 
to pass over any word of it unread. 

M. B. ANDEESON, LL.D., President of the University of Eochester, 

says : 

It seems to me that your purpose is most excellent, and the skill with 
which you have accomplished it is all that could be desired. The work 
will be useful, not only to those for whom it was specially written, but also 
to young persons in a course of classical study in the academy or college. 



After-School Series. 



E. G. ROBINSON, D.D., LL.D., President of Brown University, says: 

"Will undoubtedly do a good service, enabling intelligent readers who are 
unacquainted with Greek to attain some definite conception of the literature 
of that language, as well as enlightening and quickening into intelJectual 
life many a student who otherwise might know little or nothing, beyond 
his mere lesson, of the book he was reading. 

Hon. FRANCIS WAYLAND, LL.D, Dean of the Law Department of 
Yale College, says : 

I have examined with great interest the " Preparatory Greek Course in 
English," by Professor Wilkinson. 

The object aimed at seems to me most praiseworthy, and it is accomplished 
in a manner in keeping with the design. I do not believe that it will 
diminish the number of those studying the original Greek, while it will cer- 
tainly cultivate a knowledge and love of the spirit of the great Greek clas- 
sics among those who, but for the aid of such a crutch, would never have 
walked over the " plains of windy Troy," or in " the olive grove of 
Academe." 

I shall be surprised if it does not reach a very wide circulation. 

F. B. PALMER, Ph.D., Principal of the State Normal School, Fredonia, 
N. Y., says : 

It seems to me admirably adapted to give young students a liking for old 
authors who will be ever young, and it adds a completeness of view which 
few young persons can get by a study of the ancient authors in the origi- 
nal, or even in the best translations. 

Rev. J. H. VINCENT, D.D., Superintendent of Instruction, C. L. S. C, 
says: 

I have just finished, for my own instruction, reading your " Preparatory 
Greek Course in English." My dear doctor, that book is simply magnifi- 
cent. It is a complete success in every way, and I read it with the great- 
est enthusiasm. 

T. J. MORGAN, D.D., Principal of the State Normal School, Providence, 
R. I., says : 

An admirable book, unique and happy in design, and well executed. 
I wish I might have had it while pursuing my classical studies in college. 

S. L. CALDWELL, D.D., President of Vassar College, says : 

As the idea is capital, the execution is equally good. The whole book 
shows ample knowledge and good taste, and is far enough from any dullness 
such as infects some books of this kind. Any intelligent person, and even 
one well read in Greek, may read it to find it stimulating and instructive. 



After-School Series. 



Again [of the " Preparatory Latin "] : 

I find it very interesting reading. 

Rev. GEORGE D. B. PEPPER, D.D., President of Colby University, 
says: 

It is well fitted to stimulate to a thorough Greek scholarship, and equally 
fitted to serve an admirable purpose for those who can never study the 
Greek. 

Again [of the Preparatory Latin "] : 

Not till this very morning have I completed its perusal. I have been 
unable to content myself with any omissions. 

S. A. ELLIS, Ph.D., Superintendent of Public Instruction, Rochester, 
N. Y., says : 

A somewhat critical examination of the entire work fully confirms the 
favorable impression I formed at the first reading. . . . The book will be 
found to be both scholarly and popular — two qualities often divorced from 
each other. ... I am confident that whoever begins " The Preparatory 
Greek Course in English " will read it through to the end, and will look 
with eager expecancy, as I shall, for the other volumes ihat are to follow. 

Subsequently: In our estimation it grows better and better. 

Professor W. F. ALLEN, Professor of Latin in the University of Wis- 
consin, says: 

It perms to me that it is better adapted to give non-classical readers a 
notion of what classical literature is than any other book with which I am 
acquainted. I shall look with interest for the succeeding volumes. 

Again [of the " Preparatory Latin "] : 

I will only reiterate in general what I said then in relation to the new 
book. 

Rev. A. P. PEABODY, D.D., LL.D., late of Harvard University, says : 

I have looked through Mr. Wilkinson's " Preparatory Greek Course in 
English," and am prepared to give it my warmest commendation. It sup- 
plies a need which is more and more felt from year to year, for two reasons, 
one for which I rejoice, the higher standard of culture that prevails in so- 
ciety at large; the other, inevitable, yet to me a subject of regret, the 
diminishing disposition on the part of well-educated people to study the 
classical languages. 

CHARLES KENDALL ADAMS, LL.D., President of Cornell University, 
says : 

I found almost nothing to criticise. I cannot conscientiously say less 
than that you have wr.tten an excelleut book on a difficult subject. I could 

6 



After-School Series. 



not commend your book, if I thought it would be deemed a substitute for 
studies in the Greek language. But it seems to me well calculated to 
sharpen the appetite instead of satisfying it. Your accounts of the larger 
works are admirable. In short, the book as a whole is remarkably well 
adapted to tempt the reader to a further acquaintance with Greek litera- 
ture and life. And this is saying much; for, in these busy and distracting 
times, education is apt to drift away from the safe anchorage of the classics, 
and whatever tends to hold it to its moorings performs a service for which 
all scholars should be grateful. 

Professor HENRY S. FRIEZE, LL.D., head of the Department of Latin 
in the University of Michigan, says : 

I have been delighted with the perusal of your critical notices, your own 
translations, and your selections of the translations of others, and I sincerely 
congratulate you on the admirable style in which you have presented the 
matter itself, as well as on the character of the matter itself, and the plan of 
the whole work. 

Again [of the " Preparatory Latin "] : 

It cannot fail to do good in opening a new world of thought and expression 
to those who have no access to it through the Latin originals, and in thus 
enlarging the circle of readers and scholars interested in classical literature. 
I trust nothing will interrupt your plan of adding more advanced works of a 
similar kind to the series. They will together form a valuable contribution 
to the history of classical literature. 

Professor F. S. CAPEN, of Colby University, says : 

Having studied Greek under Professor Wilkinson, I have, by a most de- 
lightful experience, a personal knowledge of his thorough classical culture and 
his ability to interest the learner. I should have felt perfectly safe in rec- 
ommending, without reserve, his "After-School Series " without seeing it. 
Having seen the numbers already published, I find them all that could be 
desired. 

The " Nation " says 

Of all the devices for introducing non-classical readers to a knowledge 
of the ancient classics, we are inclined to think that Mr. Wilkinson's (or 
Dr. Vincent's, for to him the compiler give^ the credit of the idea) is the 
most effective. It is to proceed on the course the classical student himself 
follows: to make the reader acquainted first with the land, then with the 
people, then (but this is, perhaps, a mistake) to give a peep at the language, 
and follow it up with a few fables, a dialogue of Lucian, and enough of 
Xenophou and Homer to make him tolerably familiar with them. After an 
introduction like this — and it really gives one a higher respect for our pre- 



After-School Series. 



paratory course to see how effective it is — the reader will be able to take 
hold of Sophocles, Plato, and Demosthenes with a much better understand- 
ing. . . . We think we may safely predict that the four volumes will present 
a unique and very satisfactory view of ancient literature for non-classical 
readers. 

Again : 

The "Preparatory Latin Course in English" is a companion to the "Pre- 
paratory Greek Course " of the same editor, which we noticed a few months 
ago. It has the same general character, and the same excellences in execu- 
tion, while it shows a readier and more experienced hand. 

Again : 

Professor Wilkinson makes rapid progress with his "After-School Series," 
and we are inclined to rate his last published volume, " College Greek 
Course in English," as the best of the three that have appeared. 

The "Westminster Review " (October, 1884) says: 

Popular works of this kind ["College Greek Course in English"], so far 
from degrading "classical literature, or making the ignorant fancy lhat they 
bave the key to all knowledge, are genuine cultivators of the public taste. 

The " Independent " says : 

Whatever doubts one may have on the start as to the gain for sound 
learning in the numerous attempts to popularize it in manuals or in summer 
schools, "Where the Attic bird trills her thick- warbled notes the summer 
long," he must lay them aside, as we do, on examining William Cleaver Wil- 
kinson's " Preparatory Greek Course in English." It aims at the very end 
which seems of such questionable utility to many of us, to give a kind of 
Greek education in English to persons who cannot get it in Greek. We 
have examined the book with unusual care, and with our doubts hovering 
near as to the question whether this were not another attempt to acquire 
the French language in English, or to achieve something else without 
achieving it. But our doubts are laid. There is a large class of people 
who will find this book exceedingly useful, and we hardly venture to say 
just how large we think the class is who need not be ashamed to make use 
of it. . . . 

The " Literary World " (Boston) says : 

A bright and useful book. . . . The author acts as a personal instructor, 
and takes the pupil into his confidence, who thus gains much of the inspira- 
tion which is usually to be had only from the living teacher. . . . The ac- 
counts of great writers are excellent, and the selections from their works 
are admirably chosen, the chapter comparing the various translations of 
Homer being particularly suggestive. 

8 



After-School Series. 



Again : 

The first volume of this unique series had our hearty commendation, and 
the appearance of the second only confirms our favorable judgment. The 
books will have, as they deserve, a wide popularity. 

The " Latine " says : 

One of the most valuable books for promoting the study of Greek that 
have yet been issued in this country. ... Of value not only to the beginner 
in Greek, but also to the parent who wishes to aid his boy or girl, and to 
the teacher who would help without weakening the student. 

The " American Rural Home," Rochester, N. Y., says : 
So clear, so fresh, so learned, and yet so simple is his presentation, so 
discursive often and so happy altogether, that one reads it as if it were 
romance, until, reading it thoroughly, one may know nearly as much of the 
three Greek works most familiar as the college graduate knows. It is 
such a book as it seems somebody should have given us long ago, and yet 
Just such a book as no one, we suspect, but Dr. Wilkinson could have 
made. 

The " Baptist Quarterly Review " says : 

The author is correct in supposing that there are many, some in unsus- 
pected quarters, who will gladly welcome such a volume. 

. . . The common people will read it gladly, while many a college graduate 
may, by its perusal, add so much to his knowledge of Xenophon, Homer, 
etc., as to suggest that he is enjoying the pleasure of forming new acquaint- 
ances among interesting people. 

The " Examiner " (New York) says: 

It is not often that a man of Dr. Wilkinson's literary ability gives him- 
self to the work of enlightening the masses. If such men allow their names 
to appear on the title-pages of popular books, the bulk of the work is gen- 
erally performed by men of inferior ability. But here we have a popular 
book prepared by a writer of firsfc- r ate ability, and we are assured that he 
has given to the making of it his br-st thought and skill. . . . The introduc- 
tory remarks on Homer are particularly good. Take a few sentences : . . . 
We trust that no one of our readers will do himself the injustice of failing 
to read this book. 

Again: 

. . .The second has all the merits of the first, and in a considerably higher 
decree. . . . The attentive reader of the " Preparatory Latin Course in En- 
gU«h M will have a far more adequate idea of Lat'n literature than is ac- 
quired by the average student previous to matriculation in college. . . . 



After-Schoql Series. 



The long chapter on " Tlie City and the People " we think unsurpassed in 
English historical literature as regards philosophical insight, grandeur, and 
sustained eloquence. 

The "Methodist Quarterly Review" says: 

The writer gives frank credit to Dr. Vincent for the origination of the 
idea of this volume, as well as ample suggestions in its production ; and 
the compliment might be reciprocated that he has filled out, and more than 
filled out, the programme with eminent ability and success ... It furnishes 
to the young student a clear idea of what he is going about. ... In the 
olden time his Latin grammar was put into his hands, then his manual of 
selections, with dictionary, then his Virgil, and he plodded like a miner cut- 
ting a tunnel through a rock. A book Ike this would have thrown an il- 
lumination around his path, revealing to him where he was, and what the 
surroundings of the route he was obliged to pursue. Mr. Wilkinson has 
done his work in the best manner, van ing his style through a variety of 
changes, now cheerily colloquial, now running an even level, and anon rising 
with graceful ease into a strain of lofty eloquence. 

The " Canadian Methodist Magazine " says: 

Designed to give the English reader some such knowledge of classic lit- 
erature as the college graduate obtains through the original text. We vent- 
ure to say that in many cases it will be a superior knowledge. 

" Zion's Herald " says : 

The idea is a capital one, and is executed with rare skill. 

The " Advance " (Chicago) says : 

... To take up this book and catch a glimpse of iEschylns or Aris- 
tophanes, in a smooth translation, will bring back for a moment a faint 
glow of youth, and, like Dido, we recognize the vestigia flammas. Professor 
Wilkinson has done his work well. He has shown himself alert for the 
best translations, and the notes and illustrations are valuable aids to the. 
student. 

The " Nashville Christian Advocate " says : 

These books afford the best possible substitute for college culture in 
Greek and Latin. 

The " Standard " (Chicago) says : 

The author of these books is a trained scholar and writer. He knows 
what is essential, and what not, in study of the sort here undertaken. 

The " Intelligencer " (New York) says : 

A worthy end admirably attained. 

10 



After-School Series. 



The Methodist Quarterly Review (South) says : 

There is little doubt that the majority of pupils would become better 
acquainted with the thought, if not the style, of the classical authors by 
reading carefully the book under review than they do at present by their 
labored efforts of translating a page or two a daj'. As even the graduates 
of our colleges cannot compass the whole range of Greek and Latin authors, 
and but few entire works of any autnor, this series is worthy of their at- 
tention as well as that of the persons who have n< j ver entered college. . . . 
Mr. Wilkinson's series is worthy of all commendation. 

The " Interior " (Chicago) says : 

While the volume will certainly prove eminently useful in the line for 
which it was originally intended, it will just as certainly have strong attrac- 
tions for general literary students and readers of all classes — for those who 
have read, or have undertaken to read, these authors in their original Greek, 
as well as for those who have done neither. 

The " Sunday-School Journal" says: 

Many a college graduate will get more idea of what Herodotus and Plato 
and Sophocles have really written by the reading of this book for one day 
than they received during their whole college course. 

The " Western Christian Advocate " says [of the " Preparatory Latin "] : 

This work cannot be too highly commended. 

The " Christian Union" says : 

It is a pleasure to examine so careful and conscientious a piece of schol- 
arly workmanship as Professor W. G. Wilkinson's ''Preparatory Latin 
Course in English." Perhaps nothing better can bo said of it than that 
it is worthy to take its place with its companion volume, the "Preparatory 
Greek Course in English." 

A brief and yet thoroughly trustworthy presentation of the literature and 
thought of a great nation is a work which demands thoroughgoing scholar- 
ship and a trained literary instinct. In this volume Professor Wilkinson 
shows ample competency for the task which he had imposed upon himself, 
and the result is a book which can be commended without qualification to 
all those who desire to familiarize themselves with the Roman people in 
their intellectual achievements. It is a work of great interest as well as 
of great power oi instruction, since it deals not with the isolated mental life 
of the people, but with that life as it stands related to character, to history, 
and to the world-wide extension of Roman rule. Professor Wilkinson lias 
succeeded, in a word, in sketching, with a bold, free, and sure hand, the 
outlines of the mental and moral life of one of the great dominant races of 
antiquity. 

12 



After-School Series. 



The " Atlantic Monthly " says : 

Writes with liveliness and with a manifest determination that the reader 
shall find the Greek writers as human and as interesting as English or 
American ones. 

The " Louisiana Journal of Education " says : 

High-schools and academies in which Greek is taught should be furnished 
with a copy of this admirable work for the benefit of their pupils and 
classes. The analysis of Homer's Iliad, illustrated by quotations from the 
best translators, may be read with interest, even by scholars sufficiently ad- 
vanced to comprehend and enjoy the original. 

The " Visitor and Teacher " (Kirksville, Mo.) says : 

We have read many of our best novels and found none more thoroughly 
enjoyable, from first to last, than this work, and would unhesitatingly recom- 
mend it to all lovers of good literature. 

Professor MOSES COIT TYLEE, LL.D. (Cornell "University), says : 

I have just been looking over your book, with real delight in the ingenious 
and simple plan of it, and in its felicitous execution. 

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN says : 

In the seclusion that this island grants I have had a chance to enjoy the 
volume quite thoroughly. In fact, I have read pretty much all of it. . . . 
Your presentation of Plato, Aristophanes, and Demosthenes struck me as 
being peculiarly apt and instinctive. 

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON says : 

Your book I have read with much pleasure. ... In speaking of Aris- 
tophanes I think yon do not render justice to his poetic beauty, especially 
to the "Birds," which is the "Midsummer Night's Dream " of antiquity. . . . 
I know that there are many who will be grateful for just such a book. 

WILLIAM C. CONANT, in " Vidi Correspondence," speaks 

Of the rich classic tone with which Professor Wilkinson's own style and 
substance are so delightfully penetrated, while so free, so humorous, shrewd, 
and American. 

JOSEPH COOK says: 

Breathes the true Hellenic spirit. 
Mr. SPURGEON says : 

Bright and vivacious, 

13 



AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT. 



THE CHAUTAUQUA PRESS. 

In order to create a permanent library of useful and standard books for the homes ol 
our C. L. S. C. members, and to reduce the expense of the Seal courses, we have organ- 
ized the Chautauqua Press. 

The first issues of the Chautauqua Press will be " The Garnet Series," four vol- 
umes in the general line of the " required readings " for the coming year, as follows: — 

READINGS FROM RUSKIN. 

With an Introduction by H. A. Beers, Professor of English Literature 
in Yale College. 

This volume contains chapters from Ruskin on " The Poetry of Architecture," " The 
Cottage — English, French, and Italian," " The Villa — Italian," and " St. Mark's," from 
" Stones of Venice." 

READINGS FROM MACAULAY. 

With an Introduction by Donald G. Mitchell ("Ik Marvel '') 

This volume contains Lord Macaulay's Essays or " Dante," " Petrarch," and " Machi« 
avelli," " Lays of Ancient Rome," and " Pompeii." 

ART, AND THE FORMATION OF 
TASTE. 

By Lucy Crane. With an Introduction by Charles G. Whiting of 
" The Springfield [Mass.] Republican." 

This volume contains lectures on " Decorative Art, Form, Color, Dress, and Needle- 
work," " Fine Arts," " Sculpture," " Architecture," " Painting." 

THE LIFE AND WORKS OF MICHAEL 
ANGELO. 

By R. Duppa [Bohn's Edition]. With an Introduction by Charles G. 

Whiting. 



Any graduate or undergraduate of the C. L. S. C. reading the four volumes of the 
Chautauqua Library Garnet Series will be entitled to the new Garnet Seal (Univer- 
sity Seal) on his diploma. 



These volumes are designed as much for the general market as for members oi the 
C. L. S. C, and will form the nucleus of a valuable library of standard literature. 



Price of each volume, 75 cents; or $3 for the set, enclosed 
in a neat box. 



Address 

CHAUTAUQUA PRESS, 

117 Franklin Street, Boston 



RY OF CONGRESS 




003 231 554 9 



■ 



■ 



m 



